At Razer, innovation is in our DNA. We consistently push boundaries to create features that not only enhance the gaming experience but also often set new industry standards. Today, I'm excited to share an update on one of our latest innovations—Razer Snap Tap—initially introduced on the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro line, is now extending across more devices, including the now-available Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75%.

Innovation at the Core of Razer
Razer has always been at the forefront of gaming technology, introducing features ahead of their time. These innovations typically stir robust debates but ultimately pave the way for new standards within the gaming industry. Razer Snap Tap is no exception. Following its successful introduction, we've observed others in the industry follow and implement similar technology, validating our leadership in gaming innovation, and cementing the Razer Advantage.

NVIDIA Reflex is a game-changer, reducing system latency on GeForce graphics cards and laptops so your actions occur quicker, giving you a competitive edge in multiplayer matches, and making single-player titles more responsive and enjoyable. Since its debut in September 2020, NVIDIA Reflex is now reducing system latency in over 100 games, over 90% of GeForce gamers enable Reflex. 9 of the top 10 competitive shooters feature Reflex support, including Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Call of Duty: Warzone, Counter-Strike 2, Fortnite and Overwatch 2, along with critically acclaimed smash hit games such as Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Diablo IV, Remnant 2, God of War, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered.

In 2023 alone, GeForce gamers played over 10 billion hours of their favorite titles with increased responsiveness thanks to Reflex's innovative system latency reducing technology. Adoption of Reflex continues to accelerate and in 2024 you'll see many more anticipated titles launch with support. Since our last update, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and Escape from Tarkov: Arena have added support for Reflex. And the latest seasons of Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Overwatch 2 are all enjoyed at their best with Reflex reducing system latency and further increasing responsiveness.

Steam has announced the full list of Best of Steam games for this year across several categories. The list does not include a lot of big surprises but it is nice to see that some indie games also made it to the list. Categories include Top Sellers, New Releases, Most Played, Early Access, Steam Deck, Controller, and VR.

The Top Seller list include Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios, which is also the Game of the Year winner, Hogwarts Legacy, which was a big game this year, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Lost Ark, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Apex Legends, PUBG Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, and Sons of the Forest. Some of the Top New Releases category, which is measured by gross revenue, include Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Cities: Skylines II, Resident Evil 4, Payday 3, Remnant II, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, FC 24, as well as a few titles that are also top sellers like Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy. and Sons of the Forest.

Gear up with gratitude for more gaming time. GeForce NOW brings members a cornucopia of 15 newly supported games to the cloud this week. That's just the start - there are a total of 54 titles coming in the month of November. Members can also join thousands of esports fans in the cloud with the addition of Virtex Stadium to the GeForce NOW library for a "League of Legends" world championship viewing party.

Esports Like Never Before
This year's League of Legends world championship finals are coming to Virtex Stadium - an online virtual stadium now streaming on NVIDIA's cloud gaming infrastructure. In Virtex Stadium, esports fans can hang out with friends from across the world, create and personalize avatars, and watch live competitions together - all from the comfort of their homes. Starting on Thursday, Nov. 2, watch League of Legends Worlds 2023 in Virtex Stadium with thousands of others. Use props and emotes to cheer players on together via chat.

Rise and shine, it's time to quake up - the GeForce NOW Ultimate KovaaK's challenge kicks off at the QuakeCon gaming festival today, giving gamers everywhere the chance to play to their ultimate potential with ultra-high 240 frames per second streaming. On top of bragging rights, top scorers can win some sweet prizes - including a 240 Hz gaming monitor.

Bethesda's award-winning titles Doom Eternal, Quake, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood heat up the cloud this week, leading 21 new games joining the GeForce NOW library. Plus, Baldur's Gate 3 has been a hit with members. Make sure to upgrade to Ultimate and Priority memberships today to skip the waiting lines over free members and get into gaming faster.

Make gaming a priority this GFN Thursday time's running out to upgrade to a GeForce NOW Priority six-month membership at 40% off the normal price. Find out how new Priority members are using the cloud to get their game on.

Plus, the week brings updates for some of the hottest games in the GeForce NOW library, and four more titles join the list. GeForce NOW RTX 4080 SuperPODs are now live for Ultimate members in Atlanta, where the gamers game. Follow along with the server rollout, and upgrade today for the Ultimate cloud gaming experience.

The new season of Apex Legends is here! Arsenal launches today and ushers in a ton of new content and updates, including a new Legend, major map updates to World's Edge, and so much more. Here are the features I'm the most excited for, but you can expect a ton more content when you jump into Apex Legends today and throughout this season!

Before the Apex Games, a more brutal competition held sway: the Thunderdome Games! Here, sibling fighters Sok Leng and Kit Siang Phua reigned supreme. They were joined by August Brinkman, Sok Leng's eventual husband. But when August's selfish playstyle led to Kit Siang's death, August would retreat from the Games, from Sok Leng, and from their young son, Nate. August spent decades as a recluse. When Nate decides to follow his family's legacy into the arena, August returns to strike a deal to reenter the Games in his son's place.

We're incredibly excited to announce that the Apex Legends team at Respawn will continue to strengthen its development team with the introduction of a brand new studio location in Madison, Wisconsin led by industry veteran Ryan Burnett. Ryan is an extraordinary leader with a proven track record in live service games and as a pillar in the massive mid-western game development community in Madison. With nearly two decades of development experience at places like Raven Software and Epic Games, Ryan has a history of inspiring the sort of creativity and innovation in his teams that is the foundation of games like Apex Legends.

It's been our belief since day one that Respawn is not a singular location but a mindset: when passionate and talented people have creative freedom, they'll achieve the unexpected. This view helped us successfully expand to Vancouver in 2019, and as the workplace evolved, it helped us continue to work with the best that the games industry has to offer, whether at the office, remote, or hybrid.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Lucasfilm Games are joining forces to continue delivering all-new, world-class gaming experiences set within the beloved Star Wars galaxy. Respawn Entertainment, best known for their work on Apex Legends, Titanfall and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is leading the development and production of these new projects. Vince Zampella, Group GM and Founder of Respawn, will oversee this new phase of EA's relationship with Lucasfilm, building on Respawn's award-winning history in game development and expertise in telling compelling Star Wars stories.

Game Director Stig Asmussen and his team at the studio are already working on the next game in the action adventure Star Wars Jedi series, and are joined by two new teams working to deliver additional unique Star Wars gameplay experiences across multiple genres. Leading the development of Respawn's all-new Star Wars first-person shooter game is Peter Hirschmann, Game Director at Respawn, who has a long and accomplished history with the Star Wars franchise. The third title is a Star Wars strategy game developed through a production collaboration with the newly formed studio Bit Reactor, helmed by games industry veteran Greg Foerstch. Respawn will produce the new Star Wars strategy game while Bit Reactor leads on the development of the title.

NVIDIA today announced that Electronic Arts is bringing more of its hit games to the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, beginning with Battlefield 1 Revolution, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Unravel Two, Dragon Age : Inquisition and Apex Legends. GeForce NOW membership has more than doubled in the last year, giving Electronic Arts access to more than 12 million gamers. Collectively, over 20 million hours of gameplay are streamed each month via GeForce NOW, from 30 data centers in more than 70 countries.

GeForce NOW allows Electronic Arts games to be played with legendary GeForce performance by gamers who may not have a gaming PC— that includes more than 1 billion underpowered PCs and incompatible devices, like phones, tablets and Chromebooks. Nearly 80 percent of the devices that currently access GeForce NOW would not otherwise be capable of playing the latest PC games.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin. Version 21.7.1 beta introduces optimization for F1 2021, with a 6% performance improvement seen at 4K UHD on an RX 6800 XT, over the previous drivers. Support is also introduced for the new Radeon RX 6700M and RX 6600M mobile GPUs.

Among the issues fixed are an Oculus service error preventing the Oculus Link setup from running on machines with RX 5000 and RX 6000 series graphics cards; lighting corruption noticed in Apex Legends with Radeon Boost enabled; AMD User Experience Program consuming abnormally high memory; driver version mismatch between Windows Store and AMD Support versions; high memory usage on some running 3DMark Time Spy; and an image corruption in Carrion with AF enabled.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.7.1 beta

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced preliminary financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year ended March 31, 2021. "Our teams have done incredible work over the last year to deliver amazing experiences during a very challenging time for everyone around the world," said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. "With tremendous engagement across our portfolio, we delivered a record year for Electronic Arts. We're now accelerating in FY22, powered by expansion of our blockbuster franchises to more platforms and geographies, a deep pipeline of new content, and recent acquisitions that will be catalysts for further growth."

"EA delivered a strong quarter, driven by live services and Apex Legends' extraordinary performance. Apex steadily grew through the last year, driven by the games team and the content they are delivering," said COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen. "Looking forward, the momentum in our existing live services provides a solid foundation for FY22. Combined with a new Battlefield and our recent acquisitions, we expect net bookings growth in the high teens."

Western Digital has teamed up with Respawn Entertainment to create an Apex Legends -themed memory card for the Nintendo Switch, offering gamers and contenders across the Outlands expanded storage solutions just in time for the universally acclaimed battle royale game to drop into the Nintendo eShop next month.

Featuring the distinctive Apex Legends insignia, players can squad up and battle for glory with the microSDXC card which offers up to 128 GB of expanded storage. Whether it's existing fans who want to ready themselves to jump into the action, or new players looking to compete in the Apex Games for the first time, this microSDXC card ensures any gamer is equipped with the additional space they need to take on more adventures or challenges on their Nintendo Switch system.

Electronic Arts have recently confirmed that Apex Legends will be coming to Steam when Season 7 launches on November 4, 2020. Players with existing progression and unlocks can transfer their progress from Origin to Steam and vice versa. The game will still require an EA account to play even if launched through Steam. EA also announced that the Nintendo Switch version has been delayed to 2021 but will include full feature parity and cross-play support with existing platforms.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced preliminary financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2020. "This was an extraordinary quarter, and we're deeply proud of everything our teams at Electronic Arts are doing for our players and communities," said CEO Andrew Wilson. "We launched new games, deeply engaged players in our live services, and welcomed tens of millions of new players to our network. It was an unprecedented first quarter of growth in our business, and we will continue building on that strength with more innovative experiences, more groundbreaking content, and more ways to connect with friends and play great games throughout the year."

"Player engagement through the first quarter was exceptionally high, and well above our forecast," said COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen. "Our Stay Home, Play Together initiatives have been a strong tailwind for the business, as players look for safe and social entertainment in these difficult times. We are focused on delivering high quality titles for our players, combined with our incredible ongoing live services and increasing reach across platforms and geographies which should continue to expand our business over time."

During Electronic Arts Play 2020 event, Respawn, the maker of popular battle royale Apex legends, has announced that Apex Legends is getting cross-play support. Not only that, but Respawn is now launching Apex Legends on Steam and Nintendo Switch platforms so the cross-play can be bigger than ever. Now, players that use either PC (Steam or EA Origin), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, can be brought together and play against each other. However, Respawn didn't just announce the cross-play support. Along with it, they have announced a new seasonal event called the "Lost Treasures Collection". In this event, players get a new game mode called "Armed and Dangerous Evolved". This game mode allows for new player abilities and resurrection of knocked out players. You can find more about it in the video below.

Samsung Electronics, the global gaming monitor market leader today announced its official partnership with global esports organization, T1 Entertainment & Sports (T1). With this partnership, all teams and players located at the T1 headquarters training facility in Seoul will practice using Samsung's latest curved gaming monitors, the Odyssey G9 and G7. The Odyssey portfolio delivers a powerful combination of high-performance 1000R curvature, QLED picture quality, rapid 1 ms response time and 240Hz refresh rate for the most immersive gaming experience.

"We are proud to partner with T1, the leader in professional esports, helping them in their continued success and global growth as official display partner," said Hyesung Ha, Senior Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. "Our line-up of Odyssey monitors provides the latest in gaming monitor technology with lightning-fast speed, comfortable curvature and a sleek design, offering professional esports gamers the competitive edge they need to make every split second count."

NVIDIA today posted, the latest version of GeForce software. Version 442.19 WHQL comes game-ready for "Zombie Army: Dead War 4," "Apex Legends Season 4," and "Metro Exodus: Sam's Story." With these drivers, NVIDIA improved the maximum frame-rate setting with limits between 20 and 1,000 FPS. Find this setting in "NVIDIA Control Panel>3D Settings>Maximum Frame Rate control." NVIDIA also introduced VRSS (VR super-sampling), an image quality enhancement that super sampling selectively on the central region of a frame.

Among the bug fixes are a game crash during a cutscene in "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine," SETI@Home experiencing driver crash (TDR) on "Maxwell" GPUs, random stoppage of OBS streaming with "Call of Duty Modern Warfare," Battleye with NVIDIA low-latency mode causing a DWM crash and recovery; certain SLI+G-Sync stutter issues being fixed; a "Doom" (2016) game crash with "Kepler" GPUs, and an NVENC memory leak. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Software v442.19 | Don't forget to check out TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.3.0

NVIDIA today released an hotfix driver for their GeForce Suite. version 436.51 includes fixes specific for FIFA 19, FIFA 20 and Star Wars: Battlefront II, where these games would randomly crash to desktop; and also for Apex Legends, where the screen would intermittently flicker during gameplay. Other than that, there are no other changes compared to their latest Game Ready Drivers, version 436.48. Follow the NVIDIA link in the source to download this latest software suite, which apparently isn't being distributed over GeForce Experience.

I'll abstain from commenting and just let you guys sort this news piece out: internet service provider Cox has introduced a new fast lane option to their internet service. Dubbed the "Elite Gamer" add-on, the optional $15 service will work to ensure gamers get the best possible experience in their favorite multiplayer games. According to Cox, this "hidden" fastlane for internet traffic will be routed through a gaming-centric routing network, which will allow for up to "34 percent less lag, 55 percent fewer ping spikes, and 45 percent less jitter" than its existing internet service.

Apex Legends, Fortnite and Overwatch are the current games being touted as having specific routing pathways, and this will work with absolutely no input from the user. Data packets from these applications will be automatically sorted and rerouted through Cox' servers, which also means that this service does exactly - and limitedly - what it aims to. There will be no other improvements to the overall "interneting" experience: it's a cool $15 for what amounts to (prospectively) higher K/D ratios. It remains to be seen what impact this actually has in the competitive scene, and whether or not the listed games' lag compensation techniques serve to even the playing field somewhat. Let me throw a small wrench into the equation here: more services like this will eventually appear, which may or may not be specifically geared towards gaming. Nothing prevents ISP's from creating application or content-specific data caps, for which you'll then have to purchase data bundles or subscription services (this happens in Portugal already, but it's mostly limited to mobile bandwidth). A bright, split-lane future awaits all of us.

Apex Legends was somewhat of a sleeper hit, and it was so in many ways. A ninja introduction by EA of the Respawn Entertainment-developed game back in January saw significant interest from the gaming community, who recognized in Respawn the ability to make a great FPS. Taking advantage of the Battle Royale popularity was also a solid move, as was EA's decision to focus marketing efforts not on a long, drawn-out publicity campaign, but instead, on paying renowned Twitch streamers to play and stream their game.

Since gaming (at least when it comes to multiplayer gaming) nowadays has somewhat of a "monkey see, monkey do" dynamic for the general gaming population, this move prompted Apex Legends to the top of the streaming food chain, with a grand total of 40 million hours streamed on its first week alone. Also during its first week, the game achieved a staggering 25 million unique players, doubling that number to 50 million in the first month. However, the cash flow must die out, and as EA stopped paying streamers, so did they move on to other, more proficuous games, such as Fortnite, which has endured the Apex Legends assault in terms of viewers and players. It remains to be seen if EA will double down on the streamer investment it did on the games' launch, or if Respawn Entertainment can churn out meaningful updates and characters that can turn the tide.

We knew it was coming, and were patiently waiting for more news on a new IP from Electronic Arts based on the Star Wars license they have.. not made the best use of to date. Handed to developers Respawn Entertainment, who are on a high from Apex Legends and have shown how to create a new IP franchise for single- and mult-player gaming with Titanfall, the new single-player focused game is titled Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Respawn and EA shared more details on the game yesterday as part of the Star Wars celebration event in Chicago, and let us know that the central character is a Jedi padawan, Cal Kestis, who survived Order 66 and the destruction of most of the Jedi order.

Cal Kestis turns to scavenging on the planet Braka while hiding from the Sith empire, in a move that will no doubt draw comparisons to Disney's new numbered film trilogy. With merchandise no doubt a factor, we will also see a new droid companion called BD-1, as seen in the images below. Given the nature of the protagonist being a padawan trainee, there will also be a Jedi knight who will accompany the player as a mentor. Combat will involve strategy, as per Respawn, with the player needing to employ abilities and spatial movement to make the most of the situation. Enemy units will include the Purge Troopers, a melee-focused variant of the Storm Troopers, who have already appeared in the Star Wars Extended Universe before as specialized units dedicated to hunting down survivors of Order 66. EA and Respawn were both quick to reveal this will be a single-player only game with no microtransactions, and the game releases on PC and consoles on November 15, 2019. While we wait for more details, no doubt coming near E3 or closer to debut, here's a reveal trailer to hold you till then.

Nepal yesterday moved to ban the online game PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds, citing negative impact of the game on children and their development. Citing violent content and its effect as the primordial reason for the ban, Sandip Adhikari, deputy director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the nation's telecoms regulator, told Reuters that ""We have ordered the ban on PUBG because it is addictive to children and teenagers."

As part of the ban, all internet service providers, mobile operators and network service providers were instructed to block streaming of the game. Gamers might find ways to circumvent this limitation in order to still be able to play the game; or they'll simply migrate to one of the other Battle Royale games on offer, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends, instead. It's interesting to wonder whether the government of Nepal will keep on chasing the next online game fad one by one or if actual studies on the negative impact of these games are fielded by the Nepalese government.

It would be a safe bet to admit that Electronic Arts (EA) has not had the best 12, or even 24, months as a publisher. While their sports division continues to thrive, it may well be the one business unit holding down the fort. Their use of the Star Wars license has been dubious at best when it comes to execution, with reports on cancelled games and Battlefront II (the new one) not meeting expectations. Battlefield V has also not lit the field on fire, unless you are playing the new Firestorm battle royal mode in a literal sense, and the less said about Anthem the better. Apex Legends was introduced to much fanfare at launch, but the recent battle pass has soured many on the future of this new IP.

Perhaps it was a matter of when, rather than if, that the company would find a personnel restructure to be in order, and today just happened to be the day. EA CEO Andrew Wilson helped put out a statement on their website, recognizing a challenging world ahead and that they are "making deliberate moves to better deliver on our commitments, refine our organization and meet the needs" of players. These moves and changes involve letting go of as many as 350 people (out of 9000 total, or around 4%) unfortunately, most of whom are on their publicity and marketing departments, while also toning down their presence in Japan and Russia. We here at TechPowerUp are always saddened to hear such news, and take solace in knowing that EA is helping the laid-off personnel find new employment opportunities.

After the oddity that was its GeForce 419.67 WHQL Creator Ready drivers, NVIDIA launched new GeForce drivers with the same 419.67 version number, but with "Game Ready" branding. It's now clear that Creator Ready is a fork of the GeForce software, released at a slightly lesser frequency, targeting creativity and productivity software that don't quite need Quadro feature-set or certifications. GeForce 419.67 WHQL Game Ready, on the other hand, add day-one optimization for "Battlefield V: Firestorm," a new update that brings the highly addictive Battle Royale gameplay mode to the Battlefield franchise. Optimization is also added or refined for "Anthem," "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," and "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice." NVIDIA expanded the list of Adaptive Sync monitors that are now capable of G-Sync.

Among the bugs fixed are a performance drop noticed in DaVinci Resolve, overexposed brightness and color seen in "Far Cry: New Dawn" with HDR turned on; performance issues with "Total War: Warhammer 2" with AA turned on; artifacts seen in certain Adobe applications; screen corruption when switching display modes with HDR turned on in "Apex Legends," FOV reduction when recording with GeForce Experience; flickering noticed in "Star Citizen" followed by a CTD on "Turing" GPUs, abnormal time taken on GeForce GTX 980 responding to NVAPI calls; TITAN RTX overheating when enabling TCC mode via NVLink; and second monitor flickering with two monitors connected to an RTX 2070. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 419.67 WHQL Game ReadyThe change-log follows.