DirectX 11 Is Official

 

The original rumor was true as Microsoft has officially announced DirectX 11. Details below:

Features include new shader technology that begins to allow developers to position GPUs as more general-purpose parallel processors, rather than being dedicated solely to graphics processing; better multi-threading capabilities; and hardware-based tesselation.

Said newly promoted Microsoft’s Entertainment Business Division CTO Chris Satchell during a Gamefest keynote, “We want to break away from purely having a paradigm of pixels, vertices and shaders.”

DirectX 11 will be backwards compatible with DirectX10/9. Though with the lack of DirectX10 applications/game and the miserable adoption rate (due to consolization), it’ll be interesting to see how well DirectX 11 is received.

Games for Windows LIVE goes FREE

Well about time, Microsoft realised PC gamers hate paying to play online multiplayer and thus are making their Games for Windows LIVE service free. All features that required a gold account are now accessible free of cost. Yay indeed as the platform is finally evolving and who knows, maybe big as Steam some day?

In addition to making Games for Windows Live free, Microsoft will also be creating a brand new GFW marketplace this fall to rival the marketplace found on the Xbox 360. As with the Xbox Live Marketplace, GFW’s will offer demos, videos, downloadable content, and more. The GFW interface will also receive some tech-friendly changes, lowering requirements for developers looking to make their games GFW compatible.

Flagship Studios No Longer Owns Hellgate: London

Flagship Studios is no longer the owner of Hellgate: London. The studio lost the IP to HanbitSoft. HanbitSoft’s reason of IP takeover:

HanbitSoft states that the reason it is pursuing this course of action is because “It is hard for us to accept Flagship Studios’ requests for continued support in capital and funding any longer and because Flagship was being difficult”, and because it co-owns a direct stake in the IP, it therefore “has a say in reviewing and determining any course of action to be taken with Hellgate: London.”

HanbitSoft is expected to take full control over the IP. HanbitSoft goes on to state that in doing so, it will be able to “properly manage and develop Hellgate: London into a good game with proper content”, with its own in-house team of developers.

Basically, Flagship did a miserable job and the korean developer took back the IP to fix the trainwreck RPG.

Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising - New Screenshots

Codemasters has released new screenshots for Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising. Note that these aren’t in-game screens; they are targetal development renders that the developers “plan” to achieve. In simplest words, these screens have been photoshopped to hell to make the game look like it’s not from 2003.

Screens:

PC Gaming is The Future

Valve has been notoriously loud about defending PC gaming and it’s titles, and this time it’s no different. Speaking with Eurogamer, Gabe Newell, the man behind brilliant Half Life franchise has slammed all the false accusations and snarky comments thrown at PC Gaming. According to Valve, PC Gaming is the future. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Where console platforms have merciless and well-funded PR armies poised to combat any criticism, negative stories about the PC - mostly publishers, or developers like Crtyek, complaining of rampant piracy and flat sales - run unimpeded. Sales data that focuses solely on boxed copies sold at retail appear to back them up. Valve has had enough. “There’s a perception problem”

“I don’t want anyone between me and my customers,” says Walker. “I want to write code today and I want all my customers running it tomorrow.” Possible on the PC - Steam in particular, naturally. Not possible on consoles. For his part, Fitterer added achievements to Audiosurf in a total of two days. This constant iteration creates a feedback loop between developer and customer that, reckons Walker, can only improve the quality of the game. “The more I talk to my customers, the better my decisions will be. Without a system of talking to my customers, I will make bad decisions.”

Make you read the whole article, as it’s, for the lack of a better word; Brilliant.

And VAVLe, we couldn’t agree more!

New Need for Speed game in Development, entitled “Undercover”

Need for Speed: Undercover is under developement as EA’s CEO John Riccitiello revealed during an investor meeting. Riccitiello admitted torturing the developers. What a surprise:

We were torturing a very talented group of people up in Vancouver, which makes it harder to be as innovative every year. So, I think we are going to get better from here.

Stardock Impulse is Here!

Stardock’s answer to Steam is here. In case you’re not aware, here’s a bit of info:

Introduction
Impulse is Stardock’s new state of the art digital distribution platform. Impulse allows users to quickly and easily find their favorite game or software and download it automatically to their PC as well as get the most out of their existing games and software.

What makes Impulse so great?
Impulse has multiple features that makes it one of the best digital distribution platforms around. Some of these great features include:

• Doesn’t need to be on-line to play single player games.Supports all types of PC software (games, applications, utilities, etc.).
• Hundreds of games, applications, utilities, themes, and more available to purchase or free download.
• Includes the Impulse dock which lets users organize all their programs and data together regardless of where it came from.
• Next-generation community features integrated in. Make friends and play games together on-line, start a blog, chat, and more.
• Delivers a next generation virtual platform that developers can freely use to add exciting new features to their games and apps.

Grab Impulse from here. (1.8MB)

Stardock Impulse to Compete with VALVe’s Steam?

Amidst all the success of Valve’s brilliant Steam platform, the developer behind Sins of A Solar Empire; Stardock, is cooking up it’s very own content distribution service. Named “Impulse”. Stardock is set to fully attack Steam with bucketload of game titles, in-house applications and a jazzy (if bloated) interface.

Impulse, a new digital platform being put together by a consortium of developers, websites, hardware vendors, and game publishers and led by Stardock is designed to do this and much more.

Read more

No More Patches for Crysis

Crytek’s Crysis won’t be getting Patch v1.3 as announced by the developers.

So, What About Patch 1.3?
At this time, there almost certainly will not be a patch 1.3 delivered for Crysis. We are aware that this news will disappoint many of you, and we would like to apologize profusely. There is a good reason for this and we hope you understand when you hear more about the reasons why in the very, very near future. Please realize this was an extremely difficult decision, but please do know that we are listening to your comments and are making more consistent community support a high priority.

We are confident that the things we are working on will be appreciated by the community, and we hope for your continued support. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us.

:sadface:

Postal 2: Share The Pain Full Free Multiplayer

 

Running With Scissors, the developers of Postal games franchise, have released Postal 2: Share The Pain’s multiplayer counterpart as a free addon. The multiplayer features 14 multiplayer maps, 25 playable characters, 11 crazy weapons and 4 different gametypes. The game weighs 597MB can be downloaded from. Read more

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