According to the description of NVIDIA's session for GDC 2023, we will finally get to see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

NVIDIA will be holding a session at GDC 2023 on March 23rd together with GSC Game World's 3D Animator, Anton Riabchuk, where it will give an exclusive look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

While GSC Game World released a few screenshots as well as an official trailer for the game, GDC 2023 could be the perfect place to show an in-engine gameplay. The description of the GDC session also reveals that GSC Game World is working closely with NVIDIA and the session will also include an introduction to Omniverse Audio2Face AI SDK.

Intel released the XeSS Unreal Engine plugin, letting game developers integrate the performance enhancement technology with their Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 powered games, simulators, and 3D visualization applications. The plugin lets Unreal Engine take advantage of XeSS not just on Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs, where they benefit from the accelerated XMX code-path; but also AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, where the technology takes advantage of the slower yet functional DP4a code-path. XeSS is technically a second-generation super-resolution technology that Intel claims is on-par with AMD FSR 2.x and NVIDIA DLSS 2. Integrating it is as straightforward as adding AMD FSR support. Those interested can grab the plugin from the GitHub source link, below.

Epic Games is excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.1 is now available. With this release, we've built upon the groundbreaking feature set introduced in UE5, making it more robust, efficient, and versatile for creators across all industries. As part of this effort, we've been stress-testing the engine against different workflows, making it applicable to more sectors. We've laid the groundwork for the Lumen dynamic global illumination and reflections system, the Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry system, and Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM) to support games and experiences running at 60 FPS on next-gen consoles and capable PCs, enabling fast-paced competitive games and detailed simulations to run without latency.

Meanwhile, Nanite has also been updated with a Programmable Rasterizer to allow for material-driven animations and deformations via World Position Offset, as well as opacity masks. This exciting development paves the way for artists to use Nanite to program specific objects' behavior, for example Nanite-based foliage with leaves blowing in the wind. This release adds a number of features to improve efficiency for developers of games and other large-scale interactive projects, helping teams be more productive.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of its GeForce Game Ready drivers. Version 516.59 WHQL comes with optimization for F1 2022. The drivers also introduce support for Windows 11 22H2, and the "new" GeForce GTX 1630, besides CUDA 11.7. The drivers also fix a handful of issues, including artifacts noticed in Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan), Minecraft Java Edition, and Second Life, when connecting using third-party viewers. Incorrect light-source rendering in Neverwinter Nights; and black textures in Path of Exile. A stuttering was noticed in games when you invoke the Xbox overlay, which has been fixed. Lastly, a bunch of stability issues with Unreal Engine 5 has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 516.59 WHQL

Today marks a year since gamers could try out AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution technology for themselves with our spatial upscaler - FSR 1. With the introduction of FSR 2, our temporal upscaling solution earlier this year, there are now over 110 games that support FSR. The rate of uptake has been very impressive - FSR is AMD's fastest adopted software gaming technology to date.

So it seems fitting that we should pick this anniversary day to share the source code for FSR 2, opening up the opportunity for every game developer to integrate FSR 2 if they wish, and add their title to the 24 games which have already announced support. As always, the source code is being made available via GPUOpen under the MIT license, and you can now find links to it on our dedicated FSR 2 page.

Millions of viewers around the world today watched the world premiere cinematic trailer for Frost Giant Studios' eagerly-anticipated real-time strategy game, Stormgate. Southern California-based Frost Giant Studios was founded in 2020 by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, veteran game development leaders who helped create some of the most acclaimed and best-selling PC games of all time-as well as some of the most-watched esports-including Blizzard Entertainment's WarCraft III and StarCraft II.

"We are building Stormgate for the real-time strategy community--past, present, and future," said Tim Morten, CEO and production director at Frost Giant Studios. "Our vision is to create a social experience that breaks down the barriers that have kept people away, to welcome back players who have been waiting for the next great RTS, and to prove that the RTS genre can thrive once again."

Star Atlas, a next-gen metaverse with triple-A game design and Unreal Engine 5 graphics built on the Solana blockchain, today announced its partnership with iBUYPOWER, a leading manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, and now the official computer hardware provider of Star Atlas. This is the first step in a long-term relationship to onboard new gamers to the metaverse.

"We're really excited to join forces with iBUYPOWER to accelerate the adoption of web3 gaming," said Michael Wager, Co-Founder and CEO of ATMTA, Inc., the principal development studio of Star Atlas. "There is a lot of skepticism around web3 gaming, and we're happy to partner with the leading gaming hardware maker because we understand the needs of traditional gamers. iBUYPOWER builds great products, and we're glad they share our vision and want to help get their gaming community in the Star Atlas metaverse so they can see just how great of a gaming experience it's going to be."

Epic Games is excited to announce that The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is now available to download for free on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. This boundary-pushing technical demo is an original concept set within the world of Warner Bros' The Matrix. Written and cinematically directed by Lana Wachowski, it features Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprising their roles as Neo and Trinity and—in a reality-flipping twist—also playing themselves.

The project reunited many of the crew that worked on the seminal The Matrix trilogy, including James McTeigue, Kym Barrett, John Gaeta, Kim Libreri, Jerome Platteaux, George Borshukov, and Michael F Gay, in collaboration with teams across both Epic Games and partners, such as SideFX, Evil Eye Pictures, The Coalition, WetaFX (formerly Weta Digital), and many others.

The wait is over—we're very excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5 is now available to download! With this release, we aim to empower both large and small teams to really push the boundaries of what's possible, visually and interactively. UE5 will enable you to realize next-generation real-time 3D content and experiences with greater freedom, fidelity, and flexibility than ever before. As you may have seen, the new features and workflows have already been production-proven for game development in Fortnite and The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience demo.

Meanwhile, although some major new features like Lumen and Nanite have not yet been validated for non-games workflows (this is an ongoing goal for future releases), all creators will be able to continue using workflows supported in UE 4.27. But they'll also benefit from a redesigned Unreal Editor, better performance, artist-friendly animation tools, an extended mesh creation and editing toolset, improved path tracing, and much more. See the documentation for full details.

Enriching its game developer ecosystem, NVIDIA today announced the launch of new NVIDIA Omniverse features that make it easier for developers to share assets, sort asset libraries, collaborate and deploy AI to animate characters' facial expressions in a new game development pipeline. With the NVIDIA Omniverse real-time design collaboration and simulation platform, game developers can use AI- and NVIDIA RTX -enabled tools, or easily build custom ones, to streamline, accelerate and enhance their development workflows. New features for game developers include updates to Omniverse Audio2Face, Omniverse Nucleus Cloud and Omniverse DeepSearch, as well as the introduction of Unreal Engine 5 Omniverse Connector.

"Omniverse provides a powerful development pipeline that addresses the challenges of doing business in today's world," said Frank DeLise, vice president of Omniverse at NVIDIA. "Its ability to unify artists, art, tools and applications under a single platform can inspire collaboration among even the most dispersed game development organization."

CD PROJEKT RED today revealed that the next installment in The Witcher series of video games is currently in development with Unreal Engine 5, kicking off a new saga for the franchise and a new technology partnership with Epic Games.

Today's announcement marks the first official confirmation of a new game in The Witcher series since the release of CD PROJEKT RED's previous single-player, AAA RPG in the franchise—The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—which won a total of 250 Game of the Year awards and was later expanded upon with the Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine add-ons.

NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology has been developed to upscale lower resolutions using artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms. By using this technique, users with RTX cards can increase their framerates in supported games, with minimal loss in image quality. Recently, AMD introduced FidelityFX Super Resolution, a competing technology, which in one aspect might be technologically better than the DLSS competition. How you might wonder? Well, at the "quality" setting, NVIDIA's DLSS renders the game at 66.6% of the resolution, upscaling it 1.5 times. At the same "quality" preset, AMD FSR renders the game at 77% of the resolution and upscales the image by 1.3 times. This is technically providing an advantage to AMD FSR technology, as the image is posed to look better with less upscaling. DLSS on the other hand uses much more information, because it considers multiple frames in its temporal algorithm.

That newfound competition could be what made NVIDIA re-think their options and today we are getting some exciting news regarding DLSS. In the Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) documentation, there is a placeholder for "Ultra Quality" DLSS mode, which is supposed to rival AMD's "Ultra Quality" mode and offer the best possible image quality. Currently, the latest DLSS version is 2.2.6.0, which is present in some DLSS supported games, and can be added to others using a DLL-swap. The updated version with the Ultra Quality preset is already present in UE5, called DLSS 2.2.9.0. Mr. Alexander Battaglia from Digital Foundry has made a quick comparison using the two versions, however, we are waiting for more in-depth testing to see the final results.

NVIDIA is reportedly about to make some big announcements related to its DLSS 2.0 performance enhancement feature. Excepts from the announcement we leaked to the web by VideoCardz. To begin with, the company is about to announce that both the upcoming Unreal Engine 5, and the current UE 4, support DLSS 2.0, besides the latest version 2021.2 of the Unity Engine. A large number of first-party game engines now support DLSS 2.0, including notably, the Rockstar Games RAGE engine powering RDR2, CryEngine, Decima, AnvilNext, REDEngine, and more.

NVIDIA is also preparing to announce that a vast new selection of games support DLSS 2.0, including Red Dead Redemption 2 (support coming soon), Rainbow Six Siege, DOOM Eternal (patch scheduled for June 29), Rust, and more. Lastly, NVIDIA is about to announce that it is working with Valve to bring DLSS support to Linux, via Proton compatibility layer. This will enable playing AAA Windows games on Linux with DLSS enabled.

After Sony has showcased Unreal Engine 5 capabilities on the new PlayStation 5 console, there was a counterpart event missing from Microsoft. However, Microsoft has announced today that the company will host a live stream event on July 23rd. That is the date when Microsoft will host the event on YouTube and Twitch. Starting at 9 am PT time, the company will showcase the capabilities of the new Xbox Series X console. Possibly, Microsoft will show ray tracing and all the latest technology advancements with AMD's RDNA2 graphics card found inside the new console. What we can expect in terms of games is Halo Infinite and maybe new Forza and Gears of War games. Either way, we have to wait and find out on July 23rd.

Epic Games has just recently unveiled its Unreal Engine version 5, which was demonstrated on next-generation PlayStation 5 console. Showing off some impressive details, Epic Games has managed to use all of the power available to them from the new hardware in the PS5 console. Rocking a custom APU from AMD, the PS5 console has 10.28 TeraFLOPs of computing power, which is paired with a fast NVMe SSD. Such a combination allows for the impressive demo we have seen just a few days ago.

However, if you wonder what equivalent PC hardware would you need to run the demo on, World Today News has concluded that you would need at least to have NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER graphics card to run a demo if you could. The RTX 2070S GPU has 9 TeraFLOPs of computing power, and the demonstration would "run pretty good" on that GPU. By the time first Unreal Engine 5 based games come out, next-generation graphics cards should already be available and you wouldn't need to worry if you are getting an upgrade. For the people owning RTX 2070S and faster, they should be good to go for when games based on Unreal Engine 5 hit the market.

Epic Games has just released a trailer for version 5 of their industry/acclaimed Unreal Engine. Dubbed "Lumen in the Land of Nanite", the demo they've shared is nothing short of mindblowing when it comes to the amount of environment and character detail. Unreal Engine 5 will feature a new geometry processing engine Epic is calling Nanite, which the company promises will virtually eliminate polygon budgets for developers, with automatic stream and scaling, thus eliminating the need to develop LOD levels for particular assets. Another addition, and an as impressive one, is the Lumen global illumination engine, which will save developers the need to manually bake lightmaps accounting for every little change in a scene's lighting - the global illumination system makes these changes in lighting conditions as seamless and integrated as they can be. This among other features already introduced with version 4.25 such as Niagara VFX and Chaos destruction systems.

Unreal Engine 5 is pegged for an early 2021 release; Epic Games has already announced they will be porting their popular Fortnite videogame into the engine, which makes sense, considering it's being particularly optimized for PC and next-generation consoles. These will become the backbone of games development - and an important source of Epic's Fortnite revenue stream. Take a look at the trailer after the break - and remember this was all running real-time in a PlayStation 5 console.