2K today announced that industry veteran and Firaxis Games Chief Operating Officer, Heather Hazen, has been promoted to Studio Head, ushering in a new era of development at the legendary interactive entertainment studio behind Sid Meier's Civilization, XCOM, and the recently-released and critically-acclaimed Marvel's Midnight Suns.

As Studio Head, Hazen will manage Firaxis Games' development teams and lead its mission to build the best strategy games on the planet. With 22 years of experience in gaming and entertainment, Hazen joined Firaxis Games in 2020 as the studio's Chief Operating Officer. Prior to Firaxis Games, she was an Executive Producer on Fortnite at Epic Games, as well as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled while at PopCap Games. Hazen's promotion comes as longtime Firaxis Studio Head, Steve Martin, will be leaving the studio after more than 25 years with the organization.

Today, Intel announced the 2023 release of the Intel oneAPI tools - available in the Intel Developer Cloud and rolling out through regular distribution channels. The new oneAPI 2023 tools support the upcoming 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Intel Xeon CPU Max Series and Intel Data Center GPUs, including Flex Series and the new Max Series. The tools deliver performance and productivity enhancements, and also add support for new Codeplay plug-ins that make it easier than ever for developers to write SYCL code for non-Intel GPU architectures. These standards-based tools deliver choice in hardware and ease in developing high-performance applications that run on multiarchitecture systems.

"We're seeing encouraging early application performance results on our development systems using Intel Max Series GPU accelerators - applications built with Intel's oneAPI compilers and libraries. For leadership-class computational science, we value the benefits of code portability from multivendor, multiarchitecture programming standards such as SYCL and Python AI frameworks such as PyTorch, accelerated by Intel libraries. We look forward to the first exascale scientific discoveries from these technologies on the Aurora system next year."
-Timothy Williams, deputy director, Argonne Computational Science Division

Back in September 2021, reports about Intel working on something called SDSi or software defined silicon, started to appear. Now, over a year later, the company has finally launched its SDSi products under the Intel On Demand branding. Back then, we speculated about what features Intel would put behind a paywall and although we were somewhat off track, Intel has put some specific "instructions" behind the paywall on the supported Xeon processors. Specifically, some CPUs will have Quick Assist, Dynamic Load Balancer and Data Streaming Accelerator available as an On Demand feature. Additionally, Intel is also putting its Software Guard Extensions and In-Memory Analytics Accelerator behind the same pay wall.

It appears that these features will be offered as-a-service offering from some of Intel's service partners, but there's also a "one-time activation of select CPU accelerators and security features" according to the Intel On Demand website. It's unclear which Xeon SKUs will get Intel On Demand, but according to The Register, it'll be the upcoming Sapphire Rapids based Xeon processors which should be the first parts affected. Intel has listed partners like HP, Lenovo and SuperMicro, among others, that are involved with the Intel On Demand program. It will still be possible to buy next gen Xeon CPUs that are fully feature enabled like today, but it's unclear if the Intel On Demand Xeon SKUs will offer some kind of cost benefits to companies that don't need the additional features that are behind the paywall.

On Day 2 of Intel Innovation, Intel illustrated how its efforts and investments to foster an open ecosystem catalyze community innovation, from silicon to systems to apps and across all levels of the software stack. Through an expanding array of platforms, tools and solutions, Intel is focused on helping developers become more productive and more capable of realizing their potential for positive social good. The company introduced new tools to support developers in artificial intelligence, security and quantum computing, and announced the first customers of its new Project Amber attestation service.

"We are making good on our software-first strategy by empowering an open ecosystem that will enable us to collectively and continuously innovate," said Intel Chief Technology Officer Greg Lavender. "We are committed members of the developer community and our breadth and depth of hardware and software assets facilitate the scaling of opportunities for all through co-innovation and collaboration."

Intel has today unveiled another addition to its discrete Arc Alchemist graphics card lineup, with a slight preference to the professional consumer market. Intel has prepared three models for creators and entry pro-vis solutions, called Intel Arc Pro graphics cards. All GPUs are AV1 accelerated, have ray tracing support, and are designed to handle AI acceleration inside applications like Adobe Premiere Pro. At the start, we have a small A30M mobile GPU aimed at laptop designs. It has a 3.5 TeraFLOP FP32 capability inside a configurable 35-50 Watt TDP envelope, has eight ray tracing cores, and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Its display output connectors depend on OEM's laptop design.

Next, we have the Arc A40 Pro discrete single-slot GPU. Having 3.5 TeraFLOPs of FP32 single-precision performance, it has eight ray tracing cores and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The listed maximum TDP for this model is 50 Watts. It has four mini-DP ports for video output, and it can drive two monitors at 8K 60 Hz, one at 5K 240 Hz, two at 5K 120 Hz, or four at 4K 60 Hz refresh rate. Its bigger brother, the Arc A50 Pro, is a dual-slot design with 4.8 TeraFLOPs of single-precision FP32 computing, has eight ray tracing cores, and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory as well. It has the same video output capability as the Arc A40 Pro, with a beefier cooling setup to handle the 75 Watt TDP. All software developed using the OneAPI toolkit can be accelerated using these GPUs. Intel is working with the industry to adapt professional software for Arc Pro graphics.

Today, the AMD GPUOpen announced that AMD developed a new tool for game developers using ray tracing technologies to help organize the model geometries in their scenes. Called Radeon Raytracing Analyzer (RRA) 1.0, it is officially available to download for Linux and Windows and released as a part of the Radeon Developer Tool Suite. With rendering geometries slowly switching from rasterization to ray tracing, developers need a tool that will point out performance issues and various workarounds in the process. With RRA, AMD has enabled all Radeon developers to own a tool that will answer many questions like: how much memory is the acceleration structure using, how complex is the implemented BVH, how many acceleration structures are used, does geometry in the BLAS axis align enough, etc. Developers will find it very appealing for their ray tracing workloads.

AMDRRA is able to work because our Radeon Software driver engineers have been hard at work, adding raytracing support to our Developer Driver technology. This means that once your application is running in developer mode - using the Radeon Developer Panel which ships with RRA - the driver can log all of the acceleration structures in a scene with a single button click. The Radeon Raytracing Analyzer tool can then load and interrogate the data generated by the driver, presenting it in an easy-to-understand way.

AMD today released AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 Legacy. This is a special branch of AMD software designed for older GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture—Fury series, 300 series, 200 series, and HD 7000/8000 series. The driver only supports Windows 10 64-bit, there's no official support for Windows 11. Legacy branch drivers correct outstanding bugs, security vulnerabilities, and some other software-level updates, but the company doesn't advertise any new game-specific optimizations. This is probably because these GPU generations fall outside the minimum system requirements of the latest games. Still, if you'd like to reminisce with an older GPU you have lying around, or want to build a period-specific project (2010 to 2015); here's your chance. If however, you're looking for the regular Adrenalin 22.6.1 WHQL drivers for the latest GPUs, check out this page.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 Legacy

Cerebras Systems, the pioneer in high performance artificial intelligence (AI) computing, today announced, for the first time ever, the ability to train models with up to 20 billion parameters on a single CS-2 system - a feat not possible on any other single device. By enabling a single CS-2 to train these models, Cerebras reduces the system engineering time necessary to run large natural language processing (NLP) models from months to minutes. It also eliminates one of the most painful aspects of NLP—namely the partitioning of the model across hundreds or thousands of small graphics processing units (GPU).

"In NLP, bigger models are shown to be more accurate. But traditionally, only a very select few companies had the resources and expertise necessary to do the painstaking work of breaking up these large models and spreading them across hundreds or thousands of graphics processing units," said Andrew Feldman, CEO and Co-Founder of Cerebras Systems. "As a result, only very few companies could train large NLP models - it was too expensive, time-consuming and inaccessible for the rest of the industry. Today we are proud to democratize access to GPT-3 1.3B, GPT-J 6B, GPT-3 13B and GPT-NeoX 20B, enabling the entire AI ecosystem to set up large models in minutes and train them on a single CS-2."

Intel's high-end desktop (HEDT), usually reserved for workstation and enterprise applications, is due for an update, and the company is readying an entire family of updated products. Today, we found a leak of what appears to be an Intel Sapphire Rapids design made for desktops. Called Xeon W5-3433, the CPU appears in the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark database. It carries a configuration of 16 cores and 32 threads and is equipped with 32 MB of L2 cache and 45 MB of L3 cache. Having 2 MB of L2 cache per core suggests that the design is not an Alder Lake variation. This specific SKU is clocked at 1.99 GHz, meaning an early engineering sample.

The Sapphire Rapids HEDT platform is codenamed FishHawk Falls. Intel is supposed to offer Alder Lake-X processors with higher core counts and the FishHawk Falls. Both will be running on the same W790 chipset; however, the Sapphire Rapids implementation will carry more cores in a Xeon package designed for professionals. There was an Ice Lake-X Xeon processor called Xeon W-3335 with 16 cores and 32 threads, meaning that the leaked Xeon W5-3433 is its direct successor.

AMD and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One (F1) Team today showcased how AMD EPYC processors improved aerodynamics testing capacity, contributing to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team winning its eighth Constructors' Championship in the 2021 racing season. By using AMD EPYC processors, the team was able to achieve a 20 percent performance improvement for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workloads that were used to model and test aerodynamic flow of their F1 car.

"We are proud to partner with the reigning Constructors' Champions, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, operating at the cutting edge of racing and technology," said, Dan McNamara, senior vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD. "For F1 teams, having the most effective computational analysis of aerodynamics can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. With AMD EPYC processors, the Mercedes-AMG F1 team can iterate on vehicle design faster and more efficiently than their previous system."

According to the latest investigation made by a German publication, Igor's Lab, AMD's Adrenalin GPU software could experience unexpected behavior when Ryzen Master software is integrated into it. Supposedly, the combination of the two would allow AMD Adrenalin GPU software to misbehave and accidentally change CPU PBO and Precision Boost settings, disregarding the user's permissions. What Igor's Lab investigated was a case of Adrenalin software automatically enabling PBO or "CPU OC" setting when applying GPU profiles. This also happens when the GPU is in the Default mode, which is set automatically by the software.

Alterations can happen without user knowledge. If a user applies custom voltage and frequency settings in BIOS, Adrenalin software can and sometimes will override those settings to set arbitrary ones, potentially impacting the CPU's stability. The software can also alter CPU power limits as it has the means to do so. This problem only occurs when AMD CPU is combined with AMD GPU and AMD Ryzen Master SDK is installed. If another configuration is present, there is no change to the system. There are ways to bypass this edge case, and that is going back to BIOS to re-apply CPU settings manually or disable PBO. A Reddit user found that creating new GPU tuning profiles without loading older profiles will also bypass Adrenalin from adjusting your CPU settings. AMD hasn't made comments about the software, and so far remains a mystery why this is happening.

Samsung and Western Digital today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that implies that the two companies will join their efforts to create next-generation data placement, processing, and fabrics (D2PF) storage technologies. The MOU states that the two companies will collaborate on creating Zoned Storage devices, including ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDDs. The ZNS SSD initiative is a challenge of creating entirely new SSDs that work on the ZNS principle instead of traditional block-based drives. Opposite to data in traditional SSDs written in blocks, ZNS SSDs will place data into zones and have software understand where each bit of information is written without excessive read/write action. Another benefit of ZNS is that managing data allows less garbage collection, thus higher efficiency.

Software adoption for ZNS makes it hard, and Samsung's conjoined efforts with Western Digital aim to simplify it. Western Digital notes that "In addition, this collaboration is expected to serve as a starting point to expand zone-based (e.g. ZNS, SMR) device interfaces, as well as future-generation, high-capacity storage devices with enhanced data placement and processing technologies. At a later stage, these initiatives will be expanded to include other emerging D2PF technologies such as computational storage and storage fabrics including NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)." So, with further development of ZNS, Samsung and Western Digital will collab on more advanced storage options as well.

AMD with its Version 22.3.1 driver release, announced the re-branding of AMD Radeon Software to simply AMD Software. Over the years, Radeon Software grew into something beyond simply GPU drivers and software strictly related to the GPU and display—it is now an all-encompassing suite of software relevant to gamers and creators, helping them organize and optimize their software, share their gameplay among multiple devices locally or over the Internet; and record or stream their experiences, all using software AMD provides to go with its hardware. Going forward, the nomenclature of AMD Software will be practically identical to that of AMD Radeon Software, just without the "Radeon" part. Today (17th March), the company is releasing AMD Software Adrenalin 22.3.1 to introduce several new features and updates. Although not part of the 22.3.1 release, we predict that AMD Software in the future could integrate components beyond graphics and gaming; including platform drivers, overclocking tools, processor-related components, and more.

Apple yesterday announced its M1 Ultra processor. It is designed to be one of the most powerful solutions ever envisioned for desktop users, and it leverages some of the already existing technologies. Essentially, the M1 Ultra chip combines two monolithic dies containing M1 Max designs. They are stitched together to create one massive chip behaving in a rather exciting way. To pair the two M1 Max dies together, Apple has designed a package called UltraFusion, which is a die-to-die interposer with more than 10,000 signals. It provides 2.5 TB/s low latency inter-processor bandwidth and enables seamless sharing of information across two dies.

What is more interesting is that this approach, called multi-chip module (MCM) design philosophy, allows the software to view these two dies as a single, unified processor. Memory is shared across a vast pool of processor cache and system memory in a single package. This approach is software agnostic and allows hardware to function efficiently with loads of bandwidth. Apple notes that no additional developer optimization is required for the new processor, and the already-existing stack of applications for M1 Max works out-of-the-box. Talking about numbers, the M1 Ultra chip has a potential main memory bandwidth of 800 GB/s, with up to 128 GB of unified system memory. We are yet to see how this design behaves as the first Mac Studio units start shipping, so we have to wait for more tests to check these claims out.

Elden Ring launched in late February to rave critic and consumer reviews. The game is an excellent showcase of From Software's gaming design ethos, but ultimately proves that the company's rendering engine still requires work after years of installments due to widely-reported stuttering issues - irrespective of hardware configuration. A fix for Elden Ring's stuttering issues has surfaced on late Monday - courtesy of Valve and its Proton wrapper, and only applicable to the Steam Deck. In a way, this turns Steam Deck into the smoothest device to play Elden Ring on.

The issue with Elden Ring's stuttering has been linked to the games' continuous shader loading. Apparently, Elden Ring allows users to enter its vast open-world without pre-compiling the required shaders (something that we've seen other games do through usually lengthy boot-up processes) for the specific hardware. This forces the game to constantly compile shaders as they're required (due to world loading, animation loading, among other triggers), which is responsible for the stuttering issues gamers on PC have been encountering.

It seems that someone at Intel forgot to press "post" on the company's promised day-0 driver update for one of this year's most anticipated games - Elden Ring. The company previously announced a partnership with Elden Ring developer FromSoftware in the development of an updated driver that wold give Intel-based Elden Ring players streamlined performance and a (hopefully) bug-free experience when it comes to graphics rendering. But Elden Ring's launch day of February 24th has come and gone - and Intel is mum on where exactly its updated driver lies. For now, the latest available Intel graphics driver stands at version 101.1121 - released in November last year.

It may be the case that the driver development hit an unexpected snag, or perhaps Intel has simply opted to delay the driver's launch until there are actually some discrete-level graphics cards available for purchase - the company's initial Arc Alchemist lineup is expected to be announced and launched later this month. That would make sense - especially considering how a driver update this close to release might include some interesting data on the upcoming graphics cards that could be pursued by data miners. Even so, it doesn't seem like a good PR move for Intel to have loudly promised an updated driver and then fail to release it - especially as Intel's uphill battle in the discrete GPU market is just beginning. Perhaps the driver developers are having too much fun with the critically and consumer-acclaimed latest installment from FromSoftware?

At Intel's 2022 Investor Meeting, Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger and Intel's business leaders outlined key elements of the company's strategy and path for long-term growth. Intel's long-term plans will capitalize on transformative growth during an era of unprecedented demand for semiconductors. Among the presentations, Intel announced product roadmaps across its major business units and key execution milestones, including: Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics, Intel Foundry Services, Software and Advanced Technology, Network and Edge, Technology Development, More: For more from Intel's Investor Meeting 2022, including the presentations and news, please visit the Intel Newsroom and Intel.com's Investor Meeting site.

Intel's Arc Alchemist discrete lineup of graphics cards is scheduled for launch this quarter. We are getting some performance benchmarks of the DG2-512EU silicon, representing the top-end Xe-HPG configuration. Thanks to a discovery of a famous hardware leaker TUM_APISAK, we have a measurement performed in the SiSoftware database that shows Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU with 4096 cores and, according to the report from the benchmark, just 12.8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This is just an error on the report, as this GPU SKU should be coupled with 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The card was reportedly running at 2.1 GHz frequency. However, we don't know if this represents base or boost speeds.

When it comes to actual performance, the DG2-512EU GPU managed to score 9017.52 Mpix/s, while something like NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti managed to get 8369.51 Mpix/s in the same test group. Comparing these two cards in floating-point operations, Intel has an advantage in half-float, double-float, and quad-float tests, while NVIDIA manages to hold the single-float crown. This represents a 7% advantage for Intel's GPU, meaning that Arc Alchemist has the potential for standing up against NVIDIA's offerings.

What seems to be one of the best supported products by NVIDIA, is getting yet another update in the shape of the Shield Software Experience Upgrade 9.0, which brings Android 11 to the NVIDIA Shield devices. The fact that Android 11 is only arriving around the same time Android 12 is landing on most phones is a different matter, but the OS isn't the only update you're getting if you own a Shield device. NVIDIA has added support for aptX, something that should please users of compatible headsets, as it's so far the most common higher-end Bluetooth audio solution, although LDAC was already supported.

NVIDIA has also updated its GeForce Now game streaming software and is pushing its new RTX 3080 to those of us that have been unlucky enough to not be able to get one at MSRP. There are also updates for the Apple TV and Google Play Movies and TV apps, where the latter gets Dolby Vision support. US owners of a Shield TV device are also getting six months of Peacock Premium for free, but a Google account is required to take advantage of this offer. There are several other minor updates and fixes as well, such as an option to automatically disconnect Bluetooth devices when the Shield TV is put to sleep and a new energy saver setting.

AMD released the year's first Radeon Software Adrenalin software update. Version 22.1.1 comes with optimization for "Monster Hunter Rise," and "God of War," with up to 7% performance increase measured at 4K Ultra settings with the RX 6900 XT, compared to the previous 21.12.1 drivers. A handful issues were also fixed. To begin with, high idle memory clocks noticed on machines with multiple high-resolution monitors, has been fixed. Power Tuning components of a saved tuning profile not correctly loading following a Radeon Software update, has been fixed. Visual corruption noticed with "Halo Infinite" when zoomed-in, on machines with products such as the RX 5600 XT, has been fixed. Flickering noticed in "Fortnite" with RX 6000 series graphics cards in DirectX 12 mode with Radeon Boost enabled, as been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.1.1

Today as part of CES 2022, Intel demonstrated advancements and momentum with Mobileye, progress toward discrete graphics leadership and the launch of the newest members of the 12th Gen Intel Core family. With these milestones, Intel furthers its commitment to enable the industry and its customers and partners to harness the technology superpowers - ubiquitous computing, cloud-to-edge infrastructure, pervasive connectivity and artificial intelligence - at the heart of the digital transformation.

During the Intel news conference, Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group, was joined by Lisa Pearce, vice president of the Visual Compute Group, and Prof. Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CEO, to share Intel's progress across multiple strategic businesses. "The Intel execution engine is back. From advancing the PC to high-performance graphics to autonomous driving solutions, Intel and Mobileye are proud to create new ecosystems and opportunities across multiple industries," Bryant said. "Together with our partners and customers, we are driving new innovation across products, platforms and services, and delivering on our vision of enabling world-changing technology that improves the lives of every person on the planet."

Some of you might remember Intel's Upgrade Service, aka software locked CPUs that launched back in 2010 with the Pentium G6951 that could have an extra 1 MB of cache and Hyper-Threading unlocked for a mere $50. Well, it seems like Intel is working on something similar, but for Xeon CPUs this time around, although the exact details aren't clear as yet.

Phoronix spotted a Linux patch on GitHub for something called Intel Software Defined Silicon or SDSi for short. It's clear that it's for Xeon CPUs and the GitHub page mentions that SDSi "allows the configuration of additional CPU features through a license activation process." There's very little to go by beyond this, but it's not hard to draw parallels with Intel's Upgrade Service from last decade, just this time Intel is targeting its business customers rather than consumers.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced an all-new gaming peripherals lineup that channels the minimalist feel of monochrome through a striking Moonlight White color scheme. The ROG Strix Scope NX TKL 80%, tenkeyless mechanical RGB gaming keyboard, ROG Strix Impact II ambidextrous gaming mouse, ROG Strix Go Core gaming headset and ROG Cetra II Core in-ear gaming headphones are all now available in North America in this stunning colorway.

ROG has a long history of weaving Aura Sync into a huge ecosystem of devices to let gamers shine a light on their personalities through their gear - but many players also seek a minimalist look. That's why the ROG color palette is expanding to include the Moonlight White series, providing a commanding counterpart to the signature red-and-black color scheme.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin. Version 21.8.1 Beta comes with support for the Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card (which we reviewed here). It also fixes an issue with "The Medium" that caused the game to crash while running FrameView. The company also identified a handful issues, some even specific to the RX 6600 XT, such as inaccurate point-lights in "Control," and driver timeouts observed in "Horizon Zero Dawn" with RX 6700 XT, and less specifically on RX 500 series products with simultaneous gaming+streaming. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.8.1 Beta

Worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, is estimated to grow 15.2% year over year in 2021 to $341.8 billion, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker. The market is forecast to accelerate further in 2022 with 18.8% growth and remain on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. Among the three technology categories, AI Software occupied 88% of the overall AI market. However, in terms of growth, AI Hardware is estimated to grow the fastest in the next several years. From 2023 onwards, AI Services is forecast to become the fastest growing category.

Within the AI Software category, AI Applications has the lion's share at nearly 50% of revenues. In terms of growth, AI Platforms is the strongest with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.2%. The slowest will be AI System Infrastructure Software with a five-year CAGR of 14.4% while accounting for roughly 35% of all AI Software revenues. Within the AI Applications market, AI ERM is expected to grow slightly stronger than AI CRM over the next five years. Meanwhile, AI Lifecycle Software is forecast to grow the fastest among the markets within AI Platforms.