Assassin's Creed Shadows is seemingly not out of hot water with gamers just yet, although this time, the flak seems to have been mostly unwarranted. Earlier this week, rumors popped up on Reddit claiming to reveal the Assassin's Creed Shadows Animus Hub, which was supposedly the upcoming RPG's dedicated launcher, and a host of in-game season passes and rewards. The leak purports to detail the first free battle pass, which is referred to as "Eye in the Dark" and will consist of 20 reward tiers. Completing the battle pass allegedly rewards 9,050 Isu coins, which can be used to purchase various cosmetics in the form of character, weapon, and mount customization options. Somewhat comically, there appear to be in-game collaborations with the likes of VISA, Red Bull, Intel, BAPE Clothing and Sprecher, although how these will play out in the game is a mystery. This news made quite a stir when it was first announced, since Ubisoft was very clear when it confirmed the game's delay last month that there would be no season passes in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

As it turns out, though, the rumors were kicking up enough speculation about the return of paid subscriptions, battle passes, and season passes that Ubisoft took to its official Discord server to address the rumors directly. Although Ubisoft confirmed that the Animus Hub is a piece of software it has been working on, all the content and rewards offered in the Animus Hub will be free content. Ubisoft was, however, careful with its words, not denying the existence of season passes and battle passes, instead only commenting that those passes will not be paid. Additionally, Ubisoft confirmed that there will be additional in-game content available for free in the Animus Hub.

Thousands of dicussion communities on Reddit have now shut doors to public access—warning signs started to appear online over past weeks, with community leaders drumming up support for a protest against the social news site's policy changes, including a strategy to monetize access to a vast pool of user data. For example the highly popular r/hardware subreddit is now "a private community"—unregistered users are greeted with a succinct message on the front page: "This subreddit is temporarily closed in protest of Reddit killing third party apps, see /r/ModCoord and /r/Save3rdPartyApps for more information." News sites are reporting that close to a total of 3500 subreddits have joined the "blackout" effort. According to the BBC this includes "five of the 10 most popular communities on the site - r/gaming, r/aww, r/Music, r/todayilearned and r/pics - which each have memberships of more than 30 million people."

A group message was shared by a moderation collective last week: "On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren't able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn't something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love." A moderator (speaking to the BBC anonymously) said that the protest will be effective due to "strength in numbers," which will presumably grab the attention of Reddit's executive team.

Logitech's competitive "G" gaming brand released a short teaser video on Friday (May 19) that alludes to an upcoming next gen product - with a cryptic message: "Built with Pros. Made for you. 05.24.2023." Gaming mouse enthusiasts were quick to leap into speculation mode and predicted that Logitech is set to reveal a successor to the G Pro X (GPX) Superlight (weighing in at 61-63 g) wireless gaming mouse - this model and its (sort of) predecessor 2018's Logitech G Pro Wireless (GPW) have been widely adopted by competitive multiplayer gamers. Others have tempered expectations, and reckon that a new lineup of gaming-oriented headphones is incoming.

The GPX and GPW models have topped mouse popularity charts consistently for the past four years, but hardcore FPS-heads have long wondered when Logitech would eventually catch up with the likes of Razer in terms of cutting-edge sensor and wireless technology. A retail listing on China's online shopping platform, Taobao, has seemingly broken Logitech's (intended?) teaser marketing method - leaked images show a new wireless model called "GPRO X Hyperlight," along with an alleged unit weight of 49 grams, a 35K Hero Sensor, an 8 Khz LIGHTSPEED wireless polling rate, and Lightforce hybrid switches. The Taobao page has since disappeared but the information has been preserved and shared on social media and Reddit. Debates have raged about the authenticity of this leak, so the images and spec details should be taken with a grain of salt.

Using our graphics card database, which is managed by our very own T4CFantasy, reddit user u/Vito_ponfe_Andariel created some basic charts mapping out the data points from our expansive, industry-leading GPU database. In these charts, the user compares technological innovation for both AMD and NVIDIA's GPUs in the last ten years, plotting out the performance evolution of the "best available GPU" per year in terms of performance, performance per dollar (using the database's launch price metric), energy consumption, performance per transistor, and a whole lot of other data correlation sets.

It's interesting to note technological changes in these charts and how they relate to the overall values. For example, if you look at the performance per transistor graph, you'll notice that performance per transistor has actually declined roughly 20% with the transition from NVIDIA's Pascal (GTX 1080 Ti) to the Turing (RTX 20-series) architecture. At the same time, AMD's performance per transistor exploded around 40% from Vega 64 to the RX 5700 XT graphics card. This happens, in part, due to the introduction of raytracing-specific hardware on NVIDIA's Turing, which takes up transistor counts without aiding in general shading performance - while AMD benefited from a new architecture in RDNA as well as the process transition from 14 nm to 7 nm. We see this declining performance behavior again with AMD's introduction of the RX 6800 XT from AMD, which loses some 40% in this performance per transistor metric - likely due to the introduction of RT cores and other architectural changes. There are of course other variables to the equation, but it is nonetheless interesting to note. Look after the break for the rest of the charts.

A Reddit user reported on a recent CD Projekt Red community event held in Warsaw, where the developer of the highly expected Cyberpunk 2077 (and highly acclaimed The Witcher 3) expanded on their latest cyberpunk game's story. According to CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 will have a shorter main storyline than that of The Witcher 3, albeit its sidequests will be much more complex and impactful regarding the entire experience. With the Witcher 3 and its numerous sidequests taking north of 120 hours to fully complete (at least at this editor's pace), this might still place the game's playtime above that of The Witcher 3, depending on the number and complexity of said sidequests.

According to the user, CD Projekt Red in the community event said that The Witcher 3 sidequests were designed as branching events from the main storyline, which would then, sometimes, make it back onto the main storyline with some repercussions. However, Cyberpunk 2077 sidequests are being developed so as to then enable more of them to be generated upon completion, depending on choices made during that slight deviation from the main story, with most of them having some kind of impact on one another.

When NVIDIA teased its August 20 event with the #BeForTheGame video earlier this week, we didn't pay as close attention to the chat the gamers were having in it, as some redditors. A screengrab confirms two things: One, that NVIDIA will launch its next-generation graphics card on August 20; and two, that the card will be named GeForce GTX 2080. This settles the debate on whether NVIDIA uses the GeForce 11-series progression or GeForce 20-series. The 10-series (eg: GTX 1080, 1070, etc.) felt like a natural continuation of 900-series (GTX 980, 970); while 20-series (eg: 2080, 2070), similarly feels like a natural succession of 10-series.

Update: Some users are also paying attention to another screengrab with a username RoyTeX, hinting at the possibility of NVIDIA disposing of the "GTX" moniker for "RTX," as it did with its recent Quadro RTX series. If true, the nomenclature could look something like GeForce RTX 2080, RTX 2070, etc. Apparently NVIDIA is going big with its real-time ray-tracing tech.

AMD, at its post-Ryzen 7 launch Reddit AMA, disclosed some juicy details about its other upcoming socket AM4 chips, beginning with the rest of the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 "Summit Ridge" processor roll-out, and a little bit about its 8th generation socket AM4 APU, codenamed "Raven Ridge." To begin with, AMD CEO Lisa Su stated that "Raven Ridge" will also be sold under the Ryzen brand. This would mark a departure from the less-than-stellar A-series branding for its performance APUs. "Raven Ridge" likely combines a "Zen" quad-core CPU complex (CCX) with an integrated GPU based on one of AMD's newer GPU architectures (either "Polaris" or "Vega").

The range-topping Ryzen 7 series will lead the company's lineup throughout Q1, with six-core and quad-core Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 series launches being scheduled for later this year. Our older reports pinned Ryzen 5 series rollout for Q2, and Ryzen 3 series for the second half of 2017. This is likely also when the company rolls out "Raven Ridge" initially as mobile Ryzen products (BGA packages, which will likely also be used in AIOs), and later as desktop socket AM4 parts.

Rouchon Industries Inc., dba Swiftech, is reportedly bringing to market a custom water block for AMD's RX 480. According to reddit user CBwardog, who spoke with a company representative, the water block is expected to come in an Acetal + Nickel package, bearing a price-tag of $99.95. No official announcement from Swiftech at this time, though it is expected that the water block will become available for sale to end-users worldwide through the usual channels in a mere three weeks.

No you can't, but read on. When we learned that NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 770 uses a GPU not unlike the GeForce GTX 680 in specifications, we overlooked one possibility, that it uses the same exact chip, the GK104. We assumed that NVIDIA could release a new ASIC codenamed "GK114" or "GK204," which features higher energy-efficiency, and GPU Boost 2.0.

A Reddit user claims that a simple BIOS flash of the GeForce GTX 680 could turn it into a GeForce GTX 770. The BIOS ROM image, which probably works with reference-design GTX 680 boards was posted, along with a GPU-Z screenshot of a "GeForce GTX 770" obtained this way. The BIOS runs the card at 1059 MHz core, 1125 MHz maximum GPU Boost, and 1752 MHz (7.00 GHz GDDR5-effective) memory, yielding a memory bandwidth of 224 GB/s. The BIOS file can be found here (try it at your own risk). We tested the BIOS with some of our own GTX 680 cards, and found it to be nothing more than a modified GTX 680 BIOS (for increased clocks) with a modified driver INF file that makes the GeForce driver display a different model name. The BIOS just has made-up clock speeds that could run on some GTX 680 cards, but could be unstable on most.

We created four additional GPU-Z screenshots to serve as evidence that just by modifying the INF file, you can make the card appear as anything you want. The string from the INF file is used in Windows for display purposes only; the graphics driver does not use it for anything else; certainly not feature detection.When your GTX 680 manages to be stable with the new BIOS, the higher clock speeds obviously work to get you that 5-7 percent performance increment. Third-rate companies often get away selling rebranded fake graphics cards in developing markets using this method. For example, they buy cheap GeForce 210 cards and sell them as GT 630 for twice the money. Even between officially rebranded NVIDIA graphics cards (such as GeForce 8800 GT to 9800 GT), the device ID is changed, so there's no reason why NVIDIA won't do the same with the GTX 770. In conclusion, this "GTX 770" mod is nothing more than a combination of a custom GTX 680 BIOS that adds higher clock speeds, and a custom INF file that changes the card's name string.

Yesterday, the website of MegaUpload was shuttered for good by the US Department of Justice over copyright infringement aka 'piracy' and various criminal charges (see the domain seizure graphic). This was done regardless of the many non-infringing files that people were also using it for, so for anyone that had their only copy of a file on the site, this is very bad news. It's also arguably even worse news for the site's operators, as they have been arrested and face extradition from New Zealand to the USA for criminal trial, all their assets seized, including all the domain names and computing infrastructure to run them, plus many personal belongings of very high value, such as fancy cars like Maseratis and Rolls-Royces and huge 100 inch TVs to name just a few.

However, this story, isn't really about this and we have linked to reports below which cover this in great detail (hot beverage recommended). MegaUpload was one of the biggest file sharing sites out there and in fact, one of the biggest sites out there, period. This means, that an awful lot of people all around the world have very much noticed its sudden demise (especially those with their only copy of a file, because they didn't bother to back it up, tsk) and are met with that highly unwelcome Department of Justice graphic, instead. Hence, the chances of an almighty backlash against this shutdown not happening are slim to none. In fact, Anonymous have already hit the websites of the DOJ, RIAA, MPAA & HADOPI (French three strikes) and others in retaliation, with likely much more to come, which is good or bad, depending on one's point of view and how effective one believes it will be.

The GoDaddy boycott over their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, which took effect today, appears to have worked. The initial fallout over GoDaddy's support for it, resulted in a furious backpedal and then a bit of dirty tricks to stop customers leaving. However, this backpedal stopped short of actually criticising it. The boycott, called by a user on Reddit and aided by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, appears to have focused GoDaddy's mind on what's right and what's wrong. They have finally given us that criticism of SOPA that they should have made in the first place, as CEO Warren Adelman, said in this statement:

We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to GoDaddy's prior support for SOPA, which was reversed. GoDaddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.