Generic post-processing injector, ReShade, which offers SMAA anti-aliasing, screen space ambient occlusion, depth of field, and many other effects, has been updated to version 4.0. More than just a version update the ReShade FX compiler has received a complete overhaul having been made fully standalone as of this release. These changes bring performance improvements, better error recovery, improved support for code features, and even opens up the ability to add Vulkan support since it can now generate HLSL, GLSL, and SPIR-V. With a change-log packed with enhancements changes and new features, Crosire, the author also reworked the UI. Not only can the new UI be customized by the user, but it also includes new features such as an in-game code editor and texture preview.

While it should be noted that due to the compiler change some effects may no longer compile or work properly in version 4.0. However, these effects just need to be updated by their authors to work with the latest release. Going forward it is likely smaller revisions and updates will be forthcoming with a version 4.0.1 already having surfaced with further fixes. Sadly, even with these quick fixes, teething issues continue beyond the few broken effects by other authors. Some games like Diablo 2 and Arma 3 are proving problematic for some users of the latest ReShade version. Even so, with further updates should see these issues resolved, however for those enjoying those two games, in particular, can roll back to 3.4.1 which remains a fairly stable release.The Change-log follows.

MSI today announces the Clutch GM50 GAMING mouse and Vigor GK60 GAMING keyboard to provide solid choices for gamers looking for powerful weapons to conquer the battlefield. Both new products offer unique features and use MSI's exclusive new Gaming Center software which allows for more detailed control and customization.

(Editor's Note: Now isn't this beautiful. We could likely coin a "single player gaming isn't dead" hashtag right out of this one, for sure. What's more impressive is that this particular Rockstar release has only targeted current-gen consoles, leaving out a huge, booming slice of the market - PC Gaming. Let's forget the fact that it isn't all that hard to have a more powerful PC than any of the top consoles on the market today... But well. let's not be salty. here's hoping that Rockstar taps into our own PC gaming market so we can have a shot at Red Dead Redemption 2 as well. Kudos for the company for the apparently amazing world they've built.)

Rockstar Games is proud to announce that the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2 has achieved the single-biggest opening weekend in the history of entertainment. With over $725 million in worldwide retail sell-through during its first three days, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the second-highest grossing entertainment launch of all time next to Rockstar Games' previously released title, Grand Theft Auto V, which achieved over $1 billion in retail sell-through in three days.

While GALAX has introduced numerous solid graphics cards over the years, their product names are a bit of a mouthful, or in some cases just odd. The latest example being their EX OC "White Gamer" line, which, let's face it, is a tad off-putting to say the least. Of course we know that GALAX aren't racist, but you have to wonder how something like this happens. It probably comes down to marketing focusing too much on buzzwords, forgetting the context of said words in the process. In my humble opinion you can trace it back to the fact every company has to stick "Gaming" in every product name or on every box. In this case you would think the fact the product is a graphics card for gaming would be enough to get the point across.

It all started with MSI in 2013, when NVIDIA Kepler was all the rage. They released the "MSI GTX 780 Gaming", which was an amazing product, better than what most other graphics cards vendors had to offer. Competitors were surprised by the success of MSI's new cards and instead of searching into the reasons for their own products failures, their conclusion was that it must be the "Gaming" name, that drove the sales, so suddenly everybody started to fluff up their product names.

1MORE introduced the Spearhead VRX H1006, its new flagship around-the-ear gaming headset. The headset is characterized by an industrial design with two metal tubes pointing downward, on which the two cans are suspended. The retractable microphone is drawn out of one of the tubes, and embellished with RGB LED, just like the ring accents bracketing the cans themselves. The headset uses USB to drive an in-stock DAC and power the RGB LED lighting. The DAC packs Waves Nx, a usage-specific DSP designed by Gammy Award-winning sound engineer Luca Bignardi. The headset features 50 mm graphene synchronized vibrating drivers, with 20 to 20,000 Hz frequency response range, 32Ω impedance, and 20 mW RMS power output. Available now, the Spearhead VRX H1006 is priced at USD $220, excluding taxes.

Microsoft has announced their xCloud initiative, a game streaming effort that looks to bridge the gap between local and stream-based gaming. xCloud is looking to bring true, platform-agnostic gaming with much lower bandwidth requirements due to a number of technologies being researched and worked on by Microsoft. Chief among these are low-latency networking, encoding, and decoding advances - all crucial parts of the puzzle for solving latency and poor image quality issues. xCloud aims to allow for "high-quality experiences at the lowest possible bitrates that work across the widest possible networks" - with 4G and 5G support. For now, the test version of xCloud only requires a minimum 10 Mbps connection, which is already very impressive in abstract - though of course it would require more info on the rendering specs being delivered to the recipient's system for deeper analysis.

One big takeaway here is that this xCloud initiative is fully powered by AMD's own hardware - as it should be. Using AMD custom hardware such as that found within Microsoft's Xbox consoles takes away the work and investment in building even more emulation capabilities on a server level, which would only add additional overhead to the streaming service. By using AMD's own custom hardware, Microsoft circumvents this issue - but entrenches itself even more on AMD's own product portfolio, both now and in the foreseeable future.