An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Gamer: Whether you think Microsoft's recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard is a move toward a dry gaming monopoly or a financial windfall for Activision and Blizzard games both, it's definitely happened. The UK's CMA has given the thumbs up, Kotick's on his way out -- the deal's closed, and now we get to see the impact ripples spread. It looks like there's already some great news for fans of Activision Blizzard's older catalogue, as confirmed by Xbox boss Phil Spencer himself in an official interview on the Xbox channel. "I do think with Game Pass that we have the ability to pick a couple franchises every year and almost do like a 'revisited' [version] -- I just made up that term ... when you look across the franchises that are part of our teams, there's an opportunity to go back."

"I wanna make sure that when we go back and visit something that we do it with our complete ability not just create something for financial gain (or a PR announcement), and not deliver." Ultimately, while he's got his own wishlist (the return of FPS classic Hexen is a running gag), Spencer says it's important for these fresh coats of paint to be a result of developer passion: "If teams wanna go back and revisit some of the things we have, and do a full focus on it, I'm gonna be all in. I think there's an amazing trove of [games] we can go and touch on again. I think about things like the Quake 2 remaster that just came out from [id Software], I thought that was awesome. They did a real good job revisiting a game, making it current, but not leaving its history behind. I'd love to see more things like that."

Valve says it has no plans for a macOS version of the recently released game Counter-Strike 2, the follow-up title replacing the hugely popular FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. From a report: Valve confirmed its decision and gave its reasons in a newly published Steam support FAQ: "As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these represented less than one percent of active CS:GO players. Moving forward, Counter-Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux."

Meta is ending support for two first party original Oculus Quest launch titles next year without explanation. UploadVR reports: The company sent out emails to all owners of Bogo and Dead And Buried II on Friday to inform them that these apps will "end services" and "no longer be supported" after 15 March 2024, five years after they launched. The Meta Quest platform policies require developers to give customers at least 180 days notice before shutting down an app, so this appears to be Meta complying with its own policy.

Bogo was a free virtual pet app designed as a demo of Oculus Quest's wireless room scale tracking and hand controllers. It's one of the few VR apps that adapts to the size of your playspace, keeping the interactable area reachable for small rooms while encouraging physical walking for those with larger rooms. Bernie Yee, a former Meta manager who hired and led the 'Oculus REX' team that developed Bogo (as well as Dreamdeck, Toybox, First Contact, and First Steps), lamented the death of Bogo on X, tagging Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth to ask that it be preserved on App Lab. Yee was let go in the first wave of layoffs in November last year, alongside multiple of the REX team. [...] While Meta hasn't commented on the decision, the use of now-obsolete SDKs and the lack of a team to update the app likely contributed to the decision to kill it, but it's not clear why it couldn't have been demoted to App Lab.

Dead and Buried II on the other hand was a $20 multiplayer shooter - one of the first FPS games available on the Oculus Quest. It launched with two game modes, a team vs team 'Shootout' and a free-for-all 'Deathmatch'. An update just under a year later added three new modes: a 1vs1 'Quickdraw' mode and two co-op modes, Survival and Horde. Given Dead and Buried II is a multiplayer title, Meta may be sunsetting so it no longer has to maintain the servers and related online services, as it also did with the much more popular Echo Arena back in August.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There have been a lot of Wipeout games released since the 1995 original, including Wipeout HD and the Omega Collection, but only the original has the distinction of having its Windows port source code leaked by (since defunct) archive Forest of Illusion. Dominic Szablewski grabbed that code before it disappeared and set about creating a version that's not just a port. He rewrote the game's rendering, physics, sound, and generally "everything everywhere." He documented the project, put his code on GitHub, and has some version of a justification. "So let's just pretend that the leak was intentional, a rewrite of the source falls under fair use and the whole thing is abandonware anyway," Szablewski writes.

As he digs into the specifics of his work, Szablewski takes the reader on a tour of PSX dev kits and how they handled Z-levels, how to translate yesterday's triangles to today's OpenGL, breaking the 30 FPS cap on a game that explicitly forbade that, and more. He takes the code from 40,699 lines to 7,731 and notably loved an excuse to work in C. "I had an absolute blast cleaning up this mess!" Szablewski's Wipeout rewrite can be compiled for Windows, Linux, Mac, and WASM (Web Assembly). You can even play it in your browser on his server (please be gentle). I spent some time in it this morning, and let me tell you: I am not ready for anti-gravity racing in the year 2052. It was a struggle to even get to fourth place, but those struggles were due entirely to skill, not system. The web version feels buttery smooth, even when you're continually clunking into walls. I had misremembered this game as having a lot more to it, but it's all feel: the trance/prog music, the physics, the controls, and the sense that you're always just slightly out of control.

SharewareHeroes.com recreates all the fonts and cursor you'd see after dialing up a local bulletin-board system in the early 1990s. It's to promote a new book — successfully crowdfunded by 970 backers — to chronicle "a critical yet long overlooked chapter in video game history: the rise and eventual fall of the shareware model.

The book promises to explore "a hidden games publishing market" that for several years "had no powerful giants," with games instead distributed "across the nascent internet for anyone to enjoy (and, if they liked it enough, pay for)."

And the site features a free excerpt from the chapter about DOOM: It seemed there was no stopping id Software. Commander Keen had given them their freedom, and Wolfenstein 3D's mega-success had earned them the financial cushion to do anything. But all they wanted was to beat the last game — to outdo both themselves and everyone else. And at the centre of that drive was a push for ever-better technology. By the time Wolfenstein 3D's commercial prequel Spear of Destiny hit retail shelves, John Carmack had already built a new engine.

This one had texture-mapped floors and ceilings — not just walls. It supported diminished lighting, which meant things far away could recede into the shadows, disappearing into the distance. And it had variable-height rooms, allowing for elevated platforms where projectile-throwing enemies could hang out, and most exciting of all it allowed for non-orthogonal walls — which meant that rooms could be odd-shaped, with walls jutting out at any arbitrary angle from each other, rather than the traditional rectangular boxed design that had defined first-person-perspective games up until then.

It ran at half the speed of Wolfenstein 3D's engine, but they were thinking about doing a 3D Keen game next — so that wouldn't matter. At least not until they saw it in action. Everyone but Tom Hall suddenly got excited about doing another shooter, which meant Carmack would have to optimise the hell out of his engine to restore that sense of speed. Briefly they considered a proposal from 20th Century Fox to do a licensed Aliens shooter, but they didn't like the idea of giving up their creative independence, so they considered how they could follow up Wolfenstein 3D with something new. Fighting aliens in space is old hat. This time it could be about fighting demons in space. This time it could be called DOOM.
The book's title is Shareware Heroes: The Renegades Who Redefined Gaming at the Dawn of the Internet — here's a page listing the people interviewed, as well as the book's table of contents.

And this chapter culminates with what happened when the first version of DOOM was finally released. "BBSs and FTP servers around America crashed under the immense load of hundreds of thousands of people clamouring to download the game on day one.

"Worse for universities around the country, people were jumping straight into the multiplayer once they had the game — and they kept crashing the university networks..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Late last month, UK regulators said they no longer believed a proposed Microsoft-owned Activision would bar Call of Duty games from PlayStation platforms, a reversal of earlier preliminary findings. Even if you grant that premise, though, Sony says that it's still worried Microsoft could give PlayStation owners a "degraded" version of new Call of Duty games in an effort to make the Xbox versions look better.

In a newly published response (PDF) to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators' recent turnaround is "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational." The company takes specific issue with the regulators' "lifetime value" modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft. Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation "simply by not making it as good as it could be." That could include small changes to the game's "performance [or] quality of play," but also secondary moves to "raise [Call of Duty's] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass." Microsoft would also "have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox," Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller's advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.

In its own newly filed response (PDF), Microsoft reiterated that it has "no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation." That follows on a March filing where Microsoft promised Sony parity on Call of Duty's "release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability." But Sony's response reflects a continued lack of trust in such promises. The company cites detailed analyses from the likes of Digital Foundry in saying that "the technical quality of Modern Warfare II was similar across platforms" in today's market. After a merger, though, Sony argues that "Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation's 'closest rival.'" "This kind of 'partial foreclosure' strategy might 'trigger fewer gamer complaints' than full Xbox exclusivity for Call of Duty, Sony says, while also allowing Microsoft to 'still secure revenues from sales of Call of Duty on PlayStation for a transitional period,'" reports Ars. "But Sony says the long-term results of this kind of 'degraded' PlayStation version would be the same as a full PlayStation ban: Call of Duty players abandoning Sony and moving to Microsoft's platforms."

"Such a move would 'seriously damage our reputation,' Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan told the CMA in a recent hearing. 'Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover.'"

Hackaday recently shared some thoughts on "purpose-built" distros: Some examples are Kali for security testing, DragonOS for software-defined radio, or Hannah Montana Linux for certain music fans.

Anyone can roll their own Linux distribution with the right tools, including [Shadly], who recently created one which only loads enough software to launch the 1993 classic DOOM.... It loads the Linux kernel and the standard utilities via BusyBox, then runs fbDOOM, which is a port of the game specifically designed to run on the Linux framebuffer with minimal dependencies.
Their report includes video of the distro booting up and playing Doom.

"The entire distribution is placed into a bootable ISO file that can be placed on any bootable drive."

"Never before have I seen live service game development summarized so well," quips GamesRadar, summarizing an official tweet Thursday about the game Tom Clancy's The Division 2.

The developers basically had tweeted that The Division 2 "cannot be updated because a recently-delayed seasonal update broke the system used to update the game, so the developers trying to update it have to first update the updater to accept new updates.

"So that they can update it." To recap: the fix for an error that delayed an update resulted in an error that broke the updater which would deliver that update to The Division 2. Consequently, the devs "are unable to make server or client side updates until the build generation system is restored," meaning they can't even extend existing seasonal content to help fill the gap between updates.
"We have good news!" the developers tweeted in an update Friday. "We have successfully created and deployed a server-side update. This is now live and extends Season 10 content. We deeply appreciate your support and patience!"

Thanks to Slashdot reader guest reader for submitting the story

The classic 1997 vidoegame GoldenEye 007 "has finally landed on Xbox and Nintendo Switch," writes the Verge: On Xbox, the remaster includes 4K resolution, smoother frame rates, and split-screen local multiplayer, similar to a 2008-era bound-for-Xbox 360 version that was canceled amid licensing and rights issues but leaked out in 2021.
Meanwhile CNET describes the Switch version: You'll need to be subscribed to Switch Online's $50-a-year Expansion Pack tier to access GoldenEye and other N64 games. Online multiplayer is exclusive to the Switch release, the official 007 website noted, but this version is otherwise the same as the N64 original.
But "No high-def for them," adds Esquire: GoldenEye 007 marks a rare case in gaming history, where the title never left the gamer zeitgeist. It has been talked about, wished over, remade, and totally Frankensteined in the modding and emulation community....

Rare, a favorite game studio of mine — its crew is responsible for many of my childhood memories, making Banjo Kazzoie, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and so many more — was always a Nintendo sweetheart. Until it was acquired back in 2002 by Microsoft. While Rare didn't pump out as many massive hits after the acquisition, the studio is responsible for one of my favorite games, Sea of Thieves. But arguably no game from those folks made more of a splash than Goldeneye.
CNN reports: Based on the 1995 film "GoldenEye," the game follows a block-like version of Pierce Brosnan's 007 as he shoots his way through various locales, all while a synthy version of the signature Bond theme plays....

The return of "GoldenEye 007," often referred to as one of the greatest video games of all time, has been years in the making. The Verge reported last year that rights issues blocked developers from releasing it on newer consoles, including Xbox, since at least 2008. Undeterred N64 fans even attempted to remake the game themselves on several occasions, though the original rights holders usually shut them down.
Modern players "may not realise how many of the features we now take for granted in shooters were inspired by this one game," writes the Guardian. "The game that would introduce a lot of players to the concept of using an analogue stick to look around in a 3D game — it's difficult to overstate how important that was." But it was the multiplayer mode that really counted. Four players, one screen, an array of locations and weapons, and all the characters from the single-player campaign.... We would usually play in Normal mode, but as the hours dragged on and the sunlight began to creep in behind the blinds, we'd switch to Slaps Only, in which players could only get kills by slapping each other to death....

It is interesting how fables around the game and its development have survived — and still intrigue. The fact that it is officially cheating to play as Oddjob in multiplayer mode; the brilliance of the pause music, which has been heavily memed on TikTok, and how it was written in just 20 minutes by Rare newcomer Grant Kirkhope. The fact that Nintendo legend and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto was so concerned by the death in the game that he suggested a post-credit sequence where James Bond went to a hospital to meet all the enemy soldiers he "injured". I think the sign of a truly great game — like any work of art — is how many legends become attached to its making.

It is lovely now, to see the game getting a release on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Game Pass.

Nvidia unveiled the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics card using its latest graphics processing unit (GPU) chip. It also showed off laptops with a whole family of 40 Series GPUs. From a report: The 4070 desktop GPU will sell for $800 and will be available on January 5 for custom add-on boards. The Santa Clara, California-based company said the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is faster than the predecessor GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, at nearly half the power, thanks to its new Nvidia Ada Lovelace architecture innovations and Nvidia DLSS 3 (deep learning super sampling) technology. The GPUs are part of the 40 Series family that the company began introducing last fall, and they will compete against the latest offerings from Advanced Micro Devices' Radeon GPU family. Nvidia made the announcement at an online event ahead of the CES 2023 tech trade show in Las Vegas.

Nvidia said that the GPUs will be built into more than 170 laptop models. The laptops use the new 4070, 4060 and 4050 GPUs from Nvidia. And 4090- and 4080-based laptops will start shipping for $2,000 on February 8. Other 40 Series RTX laptops (4050/60/70 starting at $1,000) will start shipping on February 22. Nvidia said the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti will max out a 1440p monitor, delivering over 120 FPS in modern games like A Plague Tale: Requiem, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and F1 22. Nvidia showed off a bunch of games that will take advantage of the hardware. Other titles that will use RTX's ray tracing include Cyberpunk 2077, Portal with RTX, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and many more.

An anonymous reader shares a report: CES 2023 is now just days away, and there's already a standout category that we're particularly excited about: 240Hz OLED gaming monitors. Generally speaking, OLED panels can achieve better picture quality and a faster response time than their LED or IPS equivalents but have historically lacked the ability to match them in providing high-refresh rates. There have been some exceptions -- such as the Alienware AW3423DW, a QD-OLED running at 175Hz -- but now, OLED gaming displays have finally achieved the optimal 240Hz refresh rate prized by gamers who specialize in eSports and FPS titles. There are several 240Hz OLED displays (that we're aware of) being showcased at the CES 2023 conference. One of the more innovative offerings is the Corsair Xeneon Flex, a 45-inch OLED with a customizable curvature and a $1,999 price tag. By squeezing the screen together, you can switch between flat and 800R curved display modes, making it ideal for both work and play.

Multiple theaters in Japan reported technical problems when playing Avatar: The Way of the Water. According to Bloomberg, one theater in central Japan was forced to reduce the 48 fps frame rate down to the traditional 24 fps. Engadget reports: Fans were reportedly turned away from other screenings and issued refunds. Some of the theater chains cited by fans as having issues, including United Cinemas Co., Toho Col, and Tokyu Corp., declined to comment on the problem. Not many movie theaters support high frame rate (HFR) 48 fps playback, as it requires the latest projectors or upgrades to existing ones. Normally, movie theaters would be aware of which formats they can play and plan accordingly. But HFR has been used so little that it would be understandable if errors cropped up.

It was 29 years ago today that DOOM was first released — and we're still using it! Here in 2022, the latest mod reportedly converts its demons into the zombies and creepers from Minecraft. This week Hackaday wrote about a simple emulated RISC-V processor that runs DOOM. Last month someone even got DOOM running in Notepad. And recently WebTV enthusiasts not only jerry-rigged a contemporary TV to a WebTV unit, but then actually got it to play a 1990s-era WebTV version of DOOM on their TV screen.

The last 29 years have been a long, strange trip. A hidden Doom level appeared in Microsoft Excel. A Doom video was also used to promote Windows 95. And then there was that weird Doom movie starring The Rock and Karl Urban... By 2015 Doom was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. In 2016 John Romero created a new level. Later that year a new release of Doom even featured a mod with one of the the original Doom II levels from 1994.

In 2016 we'd asked Slashdot readers to share their own favorite stories about Doom — and the best thing about that post is those 351 comments. ("I went to the door, confused why the police were banging on my door.... They said they had reports of shots being fired." )

Is anyone still playing Doom today? Share your own thoughts and memories in the comments.

And what's your own favorite story about Doom?

You can read the news in Military Times magazine. "Coming just after the 25th anniversary of the release of the cult classic Starship Troopers (November 1997), Offworld Industries and Sony Pictures Consumer Projects are bringing the fight against the Arachnids to a computer near you."

An official announcement and gameplay teaser were released for the upcoming game this week. "Starship Troopers: Extermination is a co-op FPS that puts you on the far-off front lines of an all-out battle against the Bugs!" explains its page on Steam. "Squad up, grab your rifle, and do your part as an elite Deep Space Vanguard Trooper set to take back planets claimed by the Arachnid threat!"

The page says an "Early Access" launch is planned for 2023: In Starship Troopers: Extermination, our vision is to show a galactic war between the Federation and the Arachnid Empire. After our initial launch and throughout the course of Early Access development, players will get to engage with exciting new updates that expand upon the in-game universe, and provide feedback through the Steam Community Hub that our developers can take into consideration.... [W]e will be sharing an exciting and robust roadmap with content already planned for 2023. Throughout Early Access we will provide players with more weapons, an updated class leveling system as well as progression achievements and unlockable skins for both weapons and armor. Additionally we will be adding vehicles special call in attacks including massive Orbital Strikes to help during missions. On the enemy side we will be adding more bugs, flying enemies, and boss battles that require complex player coordination to accomplish.

As we progress in development, our goal is to then begin ongoing planetary battles where the player can explore new items and enemies introduced in previous updates as an epic war breaks out. This transition adds a new world as we head to the completion of Early Access. The intent throughout Early Access is to convey that this part of our development cycle is the beginning of the war and the battle will only increase in complexity and ferocity as we move to full release.

Starship Troopers: Extermination is expected to be in Early Access for approximately 1 year. The full version of Starship Troopers: Extermination will span multiple worlds to liberate them from the Arachnid Threat. This will include additional weapons, enemies types, class progression upgrades, community events, and encounters. The player will have a more diverse roster of customization options allowing them to tailor their Troopers to fit their playstyle and experience." Starship Troopers: Extermination will launch with a massive map on Planet Valaka. Up to twelve players can team up to complete side and main missions before escaping to the extraction zone. We'll have more to share closer to the Early Access launch in 2023!

We plan to work closely with the community on Steam's Community Hub and in the official Starship Troopers: Extermination Discord as we add features, tune gameplay, and develop new content.
"Starship Troopers is in a league of its own when it comes to 90s science fiction films," writes Boing Boing's Devin Nealy. "Despite serving as an adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein book, Starship Troopers forges a unique identity through its striking visuals and deft use of satire."

Noting the two "pretty weak" straight-to-video sequels (and two more CGI-animated films), Nealy argues that "Until the franchise finds a creative team that can properly capture the essence of the first film, a video game might be the best option for the series."

Google has announced what it's calling "the world's first laptops built for cloud gaming," less than two weeks after announcing plans to shut down Stadia. Forbes reports: Google says the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, ASUS Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip and Lenovo Ideapad Gaming Chromebook all have refresh rates of at least 120Hz, displays with up to 1600p resolution, immersive audio and, critically for cloud gaming, WiFi 6 or 6E connectivity. Some models have RGB keyboards too. Subject to availability, you may get a SteelSeries Rival 3 gaming mouse at no extra cost if you pick up one of these Chromebooks. All three laptops were benchmarked by GameBench to ensure that they're capable of running games at 120 frames per second at 1080p resolution. You should get input latency of under 85 ms as well. Google notes that's "console-class" input latency.

[...] Google is bringing some neat cloud gaming features to these Chromebooks. For one thing, the devices will support Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna and NVIDIA GeForce Now. In the latter case, Google worked with NVIDIA to ensure these Chromebooks support GeForce Now's highest RTX 3080 tier. That enables cloud gaming at 120 fps at a resolution of 1600p on these systems, which come with the GeForce Now app preinstalled. You'll also be able to install Xbox Cloud Gaming as a web app on your Chromebook. Additionally, these Chromebooks will come with three-month trials for both the GeForce Now RTX 3080 tier and Amazon Luna. Meanwhile, it could be pretty easy for you to find and start playing games on these services through ChromeOS. If you search for a game in the launcher (i.e. through the Everything Button), you'll see where it is available. You'll then be able to load up the game with a single click. To begin with, this feature will be compatible with GeForce Now and the Play Store. "It's good to see that Google hasn't entirely given up on cloud gaming," adds Forbes. "Still, the timing of this announcement comes at a very odd time."

Game developer Sam Chiet has found another use for Microsoft Notepad. The ingenious creator has gotten Doom (1993) to run at 60 FPS through the boring text editor in Windows. Tom's Hardware reports: Chiet highlighted that he didn't have to modify the Notepad application. Dubbed "NotepadDOOM," the project is fully playable. Although Chiet didn't explain how the mod works, has committed to launching NotepadDOOM for other Doom fans to try out. Chiet said in a subsequent tweet that "it'll take some work to polish NotepadDOOM into something releasable, but it'll almost certainly happen over the next couple days." John Romero, one of Doom's creators, was impressed and replied to Chiet in a tweet that the mod was "incredible."

You can see the iconic 1993 shooter running in its full glory on Chiet's YouTube channel. It's Notepad, so obviously, Chiet replaced the graphics with characters and numbers. The gameplay looks pretty smooth, although we did catch some screen tearing. However, that could be because Notepad can't write the text fast enough on screen.

"Yes, it's possible to get the game Doom running atop this system firmware," reports Phoronix.

Tom's Hardware explains: Originally known as LinuxBIOS, which provides a better clue to its utility value, Coreboot 4.17 supports new motherboards, delivers a new bootloader, supports AMD Platform Secure Boot (PSB), comes with a handful of fixes, and... a port of Doom.

Coreboot is a free and open-source BIOS implementation that supports numerous extensions known as Payloads. These Payloads add functionality to the minimal code that is the basis of Coreboot. Therefore, a great deal of customizability is available to Coreboot users to determine exactly what their BIOS ROMs contain via Payload choices.

To configure Coreboot for a usable setup, one might typically start by adding a bootloader, with a choice of eight available currently according to the official Wiki. Then there is support for various popular OSes, a handful of utilities provided as Payloads, and even some games. If your BIOS flash memory space is large enough, you could even shoehorn in a Linux distribution.
There's a few caveats. (There's no sound or "save game" feature, "and your system will hang on exiting the game.")

But their article still calls Doom "a great new choice if you are bored of the Grub Invaders (Space Invaders) and Tint (Tetris) clone Payloads, bringing 3D gaming to your BIOS."

Multiplayer games assign your opponents using "skill-based matchmaking," reports the Washington Post, "to fairly balance teams and maximize the enjoyment players get..."

But not everyone wants that. For example, the Post notes, "streamers want to put on a show." For Jordan "HusKerrs" Thomas, a popular streamer and competitive "Call of Duty: Warzone" player, skill-based matchmaking is a labor issue. It "negatively affects the top 1 percent of players/streamers the most because it forces us to 'sweat' or try hard for good content and to entertain our viewers," Thomas wrote in a Twitter DM. High-level play against skilled opponents in shooting games can be opaque or boring for casual audiences. By racking up high kill streaks or stringing together multiple crushing victories in less balanced matches, streamers can more clearly show off their skill to viewers....

Hate for skill-based matchmaking is hardly a phenomenon confined to top streamers or salty Call of Duty players. As awareness about these algorithms grows, communities in "Valorant," "Overwatch," "Apex Legends" and even more casual games like "FIFA" and "Dead by Daylight" have all, at one point or another, sharply criticized matchmaking for reducing their enjoyment of the game. In part, it's an easy scapegoat for frustrated players. As Vice's Steve Rousseau puts it: "The issue today is not that skill-based matchmaking exists, but that players are now aware of just how prevalent it is." Today, speculation about how matchmaking "truly" works has spawned several analyses as well as its own cottage industry on YouTube, where videos on the subject range from neutral explainers to rants delivered as if from the pulpit... The topic is a perpetual driver of viewership, in part because there are few satisfying answers available to players....

In a phone interview, popular "Call of Duty: Warzone" streamer and XSET content creator JaredFPS said he thought companies like Activision, the studio behind the Call of Duty series, base their matchmaking algorithms on more than a player's skill in any single game. "They know everything about you," said Jared, who requested The Post not publish his full name due to safety concerns. "They have information from every single Call of Duty ever made. They know how much money you've spent, they know if you spend money, they know if you use the buy station [in 'Warzone'] a lot ... the way your movement is, how many loadouts you buy ... they know all that information...."

As matchmaking strategies have advanced they have broadened too, using insights from fields like machine learning and data science to further refine player experiences.... Advanced statistics are then used to draw inferences about the plausible outcome of every game before it happens.
EA, Epic and Activision Blizzard are all "incorporating sophisticated techniques like machine learning to tune their matchmaking algorithms so that gamers are pitted against similarly skilled opponents." the Post reports.

But in the end what players are complaining about are their non-subjective player engagement metrics, and the Post calls that algorithm what it is: "a business strategy, designed to keep players coming back."

MojoKid writes: Today Intel finally launched its first major foray into discrete GPUs for gamers and creators. Dubbed Intel Arc A-Series and comprised of 5 different chips built on two different Arc Alchemist SoCs, the company announced its entry level Arc 3 Graphics is shipping in market now with laptop OEMs delivering new all-Intel products shortly. The two SoCs set the foundation across three performance tiers, including Arc 3, Arc 5, and Arc 7.

For example, Arc A370M arrives today with 8 Xe cores, 8 ray tracing units, 4GB of GDDR6 memory linked to a 64-bit memory bus, and a 1,550MHz graphics clock. Graphics power is rated at 35-50W. However, Arc A770M, Intel's highest-end mobile GPU will come with 32 Xe cores, 32 ray tracing units, 16GB of GDDR 6 memory over a 256-bit interface and with a 1650MHz graphics clock. Doing the math, Arc A770M could be up to 4X more powerful than Arc 370M. In terms of performance, Intel showcased benchmarks from a laptop outfitted with a Core i7-12700H processor and Arc A370M GPU that can top the 60 FPS threshold at 1080p in many games where integrated graphics could come up far short. Examples included Doom Eternal (63 fps) at high quality settings, and Hitman 3 (62 fps), and Destiny 2 (66 fps) at medium settings. Intel is also showcasing new innovations for content creators as well, with its Deep Link, Hyper Encode and AV1 video compression support offering big gains in video upscaling, encoding and streaming. Finally, Intel Arc Control software will offer unique features like Smooth Sync that blends tearing artifacts when V-Synch is turned off, as well as Creator Studio with background blur, frame tracking and broadcast features for direct game streaming services support.

Tom's Guide tested a Mac Studio workstation equipped with an M1 Ultra with the Geekbench 5.4 CPU benchmarks "to get a sense of how effectively it handles single-core and multi-core workflows."

"Since our M1 Ultra is the best you can buy (at a rough price of $6,199) it sports a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU, as well as 128GB of unified memory (RAM) and a 2TB SSD."

Slashdot reader exomondo shares their results: We ran the M1 Ultra through the Geekbench 5.4 CPU benchmarking test multiple times and after averaging the results, we found that the M1 Ultra does indeed outperform top-of-the-line Windows gaming PCs when it comes to multi-core CPU performance. Specifically, the M1 Ultra outperformed a recent Alienware Aurora R13 desktop we tested (w/ Intel Core i7-12700KF, GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB RAM), an Origin Millennium (2022) we just reviewed (Core i9-12900K CPU, RTX 3080 Ti GPU, 32GB RAM), and an even more 3090-equipped HP Omen 45L we tested recently (Core i9-12900K, GeForce RTX 3090, 64GB RAM) in the Geekbench 5.4 multi-core CPU benchmark.

However, as you can see from the chart of results below, the M1 Ultra couldn't match its Intel-powered competition in terms of CPU single-core performance. The Ultra-powered Studio also proved slower to transcode video than the afore-mentioned gaming PCs, taking nearly 4 minutes to transcode a 4K video down to 1080p using Handbrake. All of the gaming PCs I just mentioned completed the same task faster, over 30 seconds faster in the case of the Origin Millennium. Before we even get into the GPU performance tests it's clear that while the M1 Ultra excels at multi-core workflows, it doesn't trounce the competition across the board. When we ran our Mac Studio review unit through the Geekbench 5.4 OpenCL test (which benchmarks GPU performance by simulating common tasks like image processing), the Ultra earned an average score of 83,868. That's quite good, but again it fails to outperform Nvidia GPUs in similarly-priced systems.
They also share some results from the OpenCL Benchmarks browser, which publicly displays scores from different GPUs that users have uploaded: Apple's various M1 chips are on the list as well, and while the M1 Ultra leads that pack it's still quite a ways down the list, with an average score of 83,940. Incidentally, that means it ranks below much older GPUs like Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2070 (85,639) and AMD's Radeon VII (86,509). So here again we see that while the Ultra is fast, it can't match the graphical performance of GPUs that are 2-3 years old at this point — at least, not in these synthetic benchmarks. These tests don't always accurately reflect real-world CPU and GPU performance, which can be dramatically influenced by what programs you're running and how they're optimized to make use of your PC's components.
Their conclusion? When it comes to tasks like photo editing or video and music production, the M1 Ultra w/ 128GB of RAM blazes through workloads, and it does so while remaining whisper-quiet. It also makes the Mac Studio a decent gaming machine, as I was able to play less demanding games like Crusader Kings III, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Total War: Warhammer II at reasonable (30+ fps) framerates. But that's just not on par with the performance we expect from high-end GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090....

Of course, if you don't care about games and are in the market for a new Mac with more power than just about anything Apple's ever made, you want the Studio with M1 Ultra.