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The NBA 2K16 mini-series themed around the professional basketball game's three cover stars comes to a close today with a new video for Anthony Davis.
Called "Rise," this video--like the ones for Stephen Curry and James Harden--highlights Davis' journey from childhood to where he stands today as an NBA star with the Pelicans. There's some amateur footage of Davis playing in high school, as well as some clips of him during his one year of college ball at Kentucky.
Nvidia's GTX 950 is specifically targeting users who want high performance in MOBA games. The company touts this video card as one that provides "reduced input latency" for MOBA gamers at a competitive price point. At $159, the GTX 950 sits between the $199 GTX 960 and the $149 GTX 750 Ti.
Nvidia technical marketing manager Alex Chang described the card to me as "not an entry-level, but entry-gaming GPU" for users who play MOBA games. That is, Nvidia is not targeting the super hardcore technical audience, but a player base made up of users who want to get an excellent experience out of their most played games, without forking out for the most powerful GPUs.
To test Nvidia's assertion that the card was ideal for MOBA games, I took it for a spin on some of the most popular titles in the genre: League of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm.
Specs
Nvidia claims that the GTX 950 provides a 45ms response time in input latency. That is, the time it takes for a mouse click or keyboard press to come to action on the screen. Here are the card's specifications versus that of its closest-priced siblings.
GPU
GTX 750 Ti
GTX 950
GTX 960
Price
$149
$159
$199
CUDA Cores
640
768
1024
Base Clock
1020Mhz
1024Mhz
1126Mhz
GPU Boost Clock
1085Mhz
1188Mhz
1178Mhz
Memory Clock
5400Mhz
3300Mhz
7000Mhz
Memory Bandwidth
86.4 GB/s
105.6 GB/s
224 GB/s
TDP
60W
90W
165W
League of Legends offers uncapped frame rate as an option.
League of Legends
Riot Games' League of Legends was first released in 2009, but the developer has given the game a graphical overhaul since then. At present, Riot Games recommends at the very least an Nvidia GeForce 8800 or AMD Radeon HD 5670 equivalent video card to run. Since the game recommends a nine-year-old card, I confidently cranked up all graphical settings to very high for the more modern GTX 950.
League of Legends offers the option to lock the frame rate at 144 frames-per-second at the maximum, which I chose. Unsurprisingly, even with all graphical options maxed out, the card handled 144 fps without breaking a sweat. Frame rate held consistently at 144 fps, and only at one point during a particularly busy teamfight did it dip ever-so-slightly, and even then only for a fraction of a second. To the untrained eye, that dip was hardly noticeable.
Curious to see how the card would deliver in League of Legends if unrestrained, I ran the game with the uncapped frame rate option selected. The fps count jumped erratically between 125 and 385--far beyond the capabilities of the monitor I was testing on. It's hardly practical, but nice to know.
Dota 2
Valve's Dota 2 runs on the developer's proprietary Source engine and recommends at least an Nvidia 7600 or ATI X1600. Similar to League of Legends, these cards are quite old, so I switched all graphical settings to maximum and set the fps cap to 144 for comparison. The resulting frame rate varied wildly, swinging from 100 to 144 fps. Bumping the cap down to 120 fps gave much more consistent results, even during fights in which many skills with visual effects were employed.
A lot happens in Dota 2's Wtf Mode.
Still, these results came from standard pub games. I wanted to see what the GTX 950 could handle when it came to some of Dota 2's crazier offerings, so I booted up a Wtf Mode game. With hero skill cooldowns and mana costs removed from the equation, it was time to see where the limits of the GTX 950 lay.
Despite an unholy number of spammed spells and explosions happening on screen, the frame rate dropped to a steady 60 fps at its lowest point--still enough to play the game comfortably. This is particularly important as Valve prepares to launch the Dota 2 Reborn update that moves the game over to the Source 2 engine and will bring with it a host of wacky new custom maps--including a 10v10 map--which veer far outside of what a standard match contains.
Heroes of the Storm
Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm sports the most demanding recommendation for a GPU of the three games tested. While a GeForce 7500 GT/Radeon HD 2600 XT will suffice as the bare minimum, Blizzard lists a GTX 650/Radeon HD 7790 or better as the recommended graphics card. The game offers settings up to extreme in graphical quality, which--for testing purposes--I opted for.
Extreme graphical quality caused some input lag spikes.
Extreme graphical quality took a noticeable toll on performance. During the calmer phases of matches the frame rate remained steady at 60 frames-per-second, but this number dropped sharply when a multitude of skills were cast during the busier team fights, stuttering to 40 fps at key moments. This translated to a noticeable amount of input lag during fights where half a second of delay meant the difference between life and death. Screen stutter was also much more noticeable when panning around the in-game map.
Tweaking the graphic settings down to ultra alleviated the heavy lag input during hectic fights, with frame-rate hovering between 40 and 70 fps. I still experienced a minuscule amount of input lag during effect-heavy fights, something that hardcore players might want to be aware of. Finally, bumping the graphical settings down to high delivered the smooth experience I was after, with the frame rate sticking closer to the 65 fps mark with minimal lag.
Verdict
Priced at $159, the performance of Nvidia's GTX 950 should hit the sweet spot for many fans of League of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm. Even when the crazy skill-spam matches were thrown at it, the card handled its workload quietly, thanks to MSI's Twin Frozr cooling system which featured on the make of the card tested.
Outside of this, the GTX 950 also supports the recently-released DirectX 12 API, Nvidia's Shadowplay software which has live-streaming capabilities, and GeForce Experience for one-click optimisation of games. These may not rank highly on the priority list of Nvidia's target audience for this card, but they are nice features to have access to. For gamers who often find themselves on a familiar-looking map with four other teammates, the GTX 950 is a solid choice for its price.
Publisher Paradox Interactive has announced the release date for the SimCity-inspired Cities: Skylines' first expansion, After Dark, and shared some new details and screenshots for it.
After Dark will launch worldwide on September 24. It adds a host of new features to the simulation game, perhaps the most notable of which is a day-night cycle. There are also new nighttime city services and options, among other things (see below). After Dark will cost $15 across PC, Mac, and Linux.
Paradox also today published the first of a weekly "design diary" blog series from developer Colossal Order. This week's features insight from Lead designer Karoliina Korppoo, who talks about how After Dark changes up the overall experience in a number of ways.
"Taking the cities from daytime to night is not as simple as one might think," she said. "While the change from day to night is visually stunning, there's much more going on under the hood. Each and every building in the game received a new texture layer to have the windows light up nicely. In addition there are new lighted signs, neon signs, and other lights to make the city look interesting during the night. The sun rises and sets, painting the sky with bright colors, you can see the moon and stars move across the night sky.
"One big change during night is that crime increases," she added. "With the cover of the night criminals are more active and more police are needed to keep the city safe."
Bethesda will announce the PC system specifications for Fallout 4 about a month before the role-playing game's release in early November. That's according to Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines, who said the PC-specific details will be shared possibly sometime in October.
"We usually announce system specs a month or less before a game's launch," Hines told a fan on Twitter.
Hines' comments came in response to a question from a fan who asked how big Fallout 4 would be in terms of GB. Given how large the game sounds, we'd expect the file size to be quite significant, but of course nothing is confirmed until Bethesda makes an official announcement.
Retail listings on Amazon spotted byNeoGAF reveal that a "30th Anniversary Edition" of Back to the Future: The Gamewill launch in October for PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. The original Back to the Future movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, was released in theaters in July 1985.
The 30th Anniversary Edition's product page also reveals that the bundle will come with exclusive content like video interviews with Back to the Futureproducer Bob Gale and Biff actor Tom Wilson. It's not explicitly stated, but it's likely this bundle will contain Telltale's five episodes in the series.
Telltale has not officially announced this new bundle, which is listed for release on October 13 for $20. We've followed up with Telltale to ask for more details, and will update this post with anything we hear back.
Back to the Future: The Game is currently available for PC, mobile devices, andPlayStation 3.
Would you be interested in playing Telltale's Back to the Future on new consoles? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Capcom has announced its updated plans for theStreet Fighter V beta in Europe, North America, and Asia.
The PS4 beta will be rolled out on a territory by territory basis, with "the first of a series of region specific stress tests" in Europe on August 20 from 4 PM until 12 AM UK time. A second session will be held on August 21 from 4 PM until 12 AM UK time.
Other territories will be given access depending on the results of the European beta, Capcom explained.
"When we are confident with the results from this test, we will share the dates and times for North America and Asia’s region specific tests," it said. "Once we have successfully completed each regional stress test, we will announce the dates and times of the official global beta test."
Capcom described the regional stress test as "an added bonus," as the "global beta test will still take place for the previously promised five-day stretch."
The Street Fighter 5 beta was originally scheduled to launch on July 23. When it went live, however, players began to report problems. Capcom repeatedly reset and rebooted its servers, but to no avail.
The beta was later abandoned, with Capcom assuring fans it "will be extending the beta period to make up for the issues we've been experiencing."
Street Fighter 5 is expected to be released in early 2016. In addition to network stress tests, Capcom intends to test out its new currency system andmatchmaking algorithm.
An off-the-cuff reveal was made at the tail end of a blog post announcing the winner of its Ill Gotten Gains Rockstar Editor Contest.
"The upcoming launch of the Rockstar Editor for PS4 and Xbox One as the next update to Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online means the next Rockstar Editor contest will be the first one with entries across all three platforms," the announcement reads.
The Rockstar Editor is a feature that was first made available on PC in April 2015, and allows players to record, edit, and share videos.
A comprehensive set of tools ranging from filters and camera modes, to audio tweaks and depth of field effects can also be accessed from within the game's campaign and GTA Online to customise content.
Crucially, the Rockstar Editor also includes a Director Mode. This has become popular among those wanting to create machinima, as it allows users to stage sequences using characters, props, and locations from the game.
Take-Two's revenue rose by 142 percent to $366.4 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2015, and the company posted an overall profit of $34.2 million for the quarter. The biggest drivers of net revenue for the quarter were GTA V, GTA Online, NBA 2K15, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, and WWE 2K15.
