Photo Credit: Reuters Google could be forced to sell off its Chrome browser to another company Highlights The US DOJ's proposal in the Google trial has been backed by the FTC It said the US DOJ's has included safeguards to protect user privacy The DOJ has also asked the judge to make the firm sell off Google Chrome Advertisement The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the de-facto federal privacy regulator, said on Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice's proposal to make Alphabet's Google share search data with competitors includes adequate safeguards to protect users' privacy.The proposal is part of a range of measures the DOJ says are necessary to open up the online search market, after ruling in August that the tech titan holds an illegal monopoly.The Washington judge overseeing the case has seen a flood of input from experts and interest groups for and against the DOJ's proposals as the trial nears its end this month. The case could fundamentally reshape the internet by potentially unseating Google as the go-to portal for information online.Increasing competition will put more pressure on Google to improve its privacy practices, the FTC said.Google has sought to block the DOJ's data-sharing proposal, which its CEO Sundar Pichai said would give away the company's intellectual property, in part by arguing that it would harm user privacy.The FTC said the proposal would appoint a committee to oversee compliance, similar to the agency's privacy-related settlements.The DOJ and state attorneys general are also asking the judge to make Google sell off its Chrome browser and cease multi-billion dollar payments to Apple and other companies that set Google as the default search engine on new devices.Google has said making its agreements non-exclusive, as it has already begun to do, is the right approach.The DOJ and state attorneys general have expressed concerns that Google could extend its dominance to AI.AI startup and Google partner Anthropic said in court papers on Friday that requiring Google to give the DOJ advance notice of its proposed AI investments and partnerships would create a "significant disincentive" for Google to invest in smaller AI companies and likely deter such investments altogether.Google holds a minority stake worth billions of dollars in Anthropic.Anthropic argued the proposal "would harm, not benefit, AI competition." (This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Google, Antitrust, FTC, DOJ, Alphabet Related Stories

Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 RenoDX is a relatively new type of HDR mod that leverages Reshade's addon api to add (or fix) HDR in games utilizing in-engine information pre-tonemapping. The mod is tailored per-game and in-game shaders are rewritten from their assembly in order to properly support HDR. A custom tonemapper is tweaked per-game to maintain the vanilla art direction (as much as possible anyway) while offering real HDR highlights, and the mod also provides a lot of extremely easy to adjust settings that should let you get games looking just about however you want. You'll want to join the HDR Den discord as some of the mods are only available on there or only provide up to date information there. I have direct links to the relevant threads below. Here's the list of games with the mod on nexus in case that's your preference. Mod Directory Mods Renovation Engine for DirectX Games. Contribute to clshortfuse/renodx development by creating an account on GitHub. github.com Mod Directory ✅ = Polished! 🚧 = Has some bugs/compromised requirements, but otherwise useable or in need of more testing ❗️ = Requires additional setup, check the nexus or discord links for more info * Discord links go to the respective threads for the mods, check the latest posts in the thread for up to date info/builds. ** Build links are either final or the latest available via autogenerated builds on github *** ALWAYS EXCERCISE CAUTION WITH MULTIPLAYER GAMES THAT USE ANTICHEAT. PLAY OFFLINE TO BE COMPLETELY SAFE IF UNSURE OF THE PARTICULAR GAME'S POLICY. Alien Isolation 🚧 | Discord Animal Well 🚧 | Discord | Latest Build Atelier Ryza ✅ | Discord | Latest Build Atelier Ryza 2 ✅ | Discord | Latest Build Atelier Ryza 3 ✅ | Discord | Latest Build Atelier Sophie 1 DX ✅ | Discord | Latest Build Batman Arkham Knight ✅ | Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Black Myth Wukong ✅❗️| Discord | Latest Build Cyberpunk 2077 ✅ | Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Dark Souls: Remastered 🚧 | Discord | Latest Build Death Stranding 🚧 | Discord Deus Ex: Mankind Divided ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Dishonored 2 & Death of the Outsider 🚧| Discord Dragon Age: Inquisition 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Dying Light ✅| Discord | Nexus Dying Light 2 🚧 | Discord | Latest Build Fallout 4 ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Fallout 76 ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Final Fantasy XIV ✅| Discord | Latest Build God of War (2018) 🚧 | Discord Guild Wars 2 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Hades 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Hades 2 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Hi-Fi RUSH 🚧| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Just Cause 4 ✅| Discord | Latest Build L.A. Noire ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Lost Planet ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Max Payne 3 🚧| Discord Middle Earth: Shadow of War 🚧 | Discord Mirror's Edge: Catalyst 🚧 | Discord Nights of Azure 1 ✅| Discord | Latest Build Nights of Azure 2 ✅| Discord | Latest Build No Rest for the Wicked ✅ | Discord Ori and the Will of the Wisps ✅ | Discord | Nexus Persona 4 Golden 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Persona 5 Royal 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Sea of Stars 🚧| Discord | Latest Build Sonic Generations 🚧| Discord | Latest Build The Evil Within 2 ✅| Discord | Latest Build The Thaumaturge ✅ | Discord | Latest Build The Witness 🚧| Latest Build Tunic ✅| Discord | Nexus | Latest Build Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection 🚧 | Discord Install instructions for all of the above: Download the latest ReShade with Addons Download the addon you want to use. Find the ReShade download, and even though it's a .exe file, you can open as an archive (I recommend using 7-Zip). Open in 7-Zip via right clicking, and extract the dll with the number that matches the number appended to the end of the addon you downloaded (reshade64.dll with .addon64, etc). Place both of these files in the directory that contains the game executable. *Note that for Unreal Engine games, this is almost always nested in <UE Project Name>\Binaries\Win64\Rename the Reshade dll to dxgi.dll. Here's a list of Luma Native HDR mods which are functionally similar to RenoDX mods: Kingdom Come Deliverance ✅ | Discord Prey (2017) ✅ | Discord | Nexus Starfield ✅| Nexus Here's a video showcasing how powerful it can be (uploaded by our very own Pargon) View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eztfWjGHGh4 View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhni-kugrl4 Check out Pargon's thread for DXVK HDR (another mod with potential for true HDR depending on the game) if the most exciting prospect for you is early 360/PS3 era HDR games. I can't imagine many of the games that work with that method will receive a mod via RenoDX.  Last edited: Dec 19, 2024 Leo-Tyrant Member Jan 14, 2019 5,960 San Jose, Costa Rica Kickfister said: In the couple games I've tried it out in, it's been a huge improvement and wipes the floor with things like autohdr and rtx hdr. It's also very easy to setup, just drop the reshade dll in the game folder (renamed appropriately), along with the addon file, and you're off. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Thanks for the tip. How are you bench-marking the Auto HDR and RTX output vs RenoDX? For example, the reference screenshots in Nexus for Fallout 4 are just how I see the game with the regular Auto HDR implementation.  Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,902 Fallout 76 and Skyrim versions are currently in progress. If someone want's to keep tabs on the progress, you can do so over at HDR Den discord in the #renodx channel.   texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,261 Indonesia Cool, I might try it for Deus Ex.   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Leo-Tyrant said: Thanks for the tip. How are you bench-marking the Auto HDR and RTX output vs RenoDX? For example, the reference screenshots in Nexus for Fallout 4 are just how I see the game with the regular Auto HDR implementation. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Those are tonemapped images so it's not really a good representation of what you see. Honestly, the improvement is going to be dependent on the way the game is tonemapped in SDR. Things like auto hdr and rtx hdr cannot recover information that is overbright, and every game is going to decide what should be overbright differently. So the main improvements you'll see are: Less banding issues More detail in highlights and more natural luminance gradients More details that *should* be in SDR space staying in SDR space.   Condwiramurs Member Nov 10, 2020 1,789 tried it with arkham knight, this is the real deal   J75 Member Sep 29, 2018 7,828 Cool, though with my gaming tastes, who knows if the games I really care about will ever be supported. This is why the more "agnostic" solutions are great.   Condwiramurs Member Nov 10, 2020 1,789 J75 said: Cool, though with my gaming tastes, who knows if the games I really care about will ever be supported. This is why the more "agnostic" solutions are great. Click to expand... Click to shrink... they look much worse to the point that i'd rather not use them   Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 RTX HDR pretty much solved everything already for me.   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Gitaroo said: RTX HDR pretty much solved everything already for me. Click to expand... Click to shrink... That's understandable. If all you want is a HDR-like bright picture, autohdr and especially rtx hdr work great. J75 said: Cool, though with my gaming tastes, who knows if the games I really care about will ever be supported. This is why the more "agnostic" solutions are great. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Hey, they've got one for Tunic just cause they love the game, you never know lol   Pargon Member Oct 27, 2017 13,988 J75 said: Cool, though with my gaming tastes, who knows if the games I really care about will ever be supported. This is why the more "agnostic" solutions are great. Click to expand... Click to shrink... There is a world of difference between extracting actual HDR from an SDR game (RenoDX, DXVK-HDR, Special K) and stretching the brightness values of an SDR image to look "HDR." In particular, it can often eliminate the "radioactive" bloom from a lot of PS360 generation games. I have a thread with other examples of HDR remastering here. Gitaroo said: RTX HDR pretty much solved everything already for me. Click to expand... Click to shrink... RTX HDR cannot recover highlight detail (enhanced dynamic range). All it does is make the bright parts of the image brighter - often resulting in very harsh images and ugly colors if you use it with older games.  SliChillax Member Oct 30, 2017 2,463 Tirana, Albania I'll check this out when I'm home but my main problem with these mods is that I always do something wrong and cant make them work. I had a hard time with SpecialK for some reason only worked a few times properly and I hate reshades user interface. If only they would make something simpler I would pay for it cause I'm not a big fan of AutoHDR or RTX HDR.   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 SliChillax said: I'll check this out when I'm home but my main problem with these mods is that I always do something wrong and cant make them work. I had a hard time with SpecialK for some reason only worked a few times properly and I hate reshades user interface. If only they would make something simpler I would pay for it cause I'm not a big fan of AutoHDR or RTX HDR. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Luckily this is very straight forward. You press home and there's a very simple interface with good defaults. Basically just set your peak nits and it'll be good enough. You can tweak more from there but it should look about how you want right away.   Leo-Tyrant Member Jan 14, 2019 5,960 San Jose, Costa Rica Kickfister said: Those are tonemapped images so it's not really a good representation of what you see. Honestly, the improvement is going to be dependent on the way the game is tonemapped in SDR. Things like auto hdr and rtx hdr cannot recover information that is overbright, and every game is going to decide what should be overbright differently. So the main improvements you'll see are: Less banding issues More detail in highlights and more natural luminance gradients More details that *should* be in SDR space staying in SDR space. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Alright, will try it with Fallout 4 later tonight. Thanks again! Edit: Out of all of these config options, which one would give me the best "stock look but with actual good HDR implementation"? I don't want to mess around the overall look of the game, I dislike all reshade options out there. F4 HDR Mod  Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 If this works for steamdeck it would be handy for steamdeck oled   Rodney McKay Member Oct 26, 2017 13,866 Gitaroo said: If this works for steamdeck it would be handy for steamdeck oled Click to expand... Click to shrink... 100%. I really hope it does, I'd try it myself but I don't have any space at the moment and don't have any of the supported games installed. Finding out how sparse HDR support was on PC was a pretty big bummer once I got the OLED Deck. Even using a website to look up what PC games had it, apparently the list included AutoHDR games which isn't something that works on Deck, so my list of supported games plummeted.  Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 Rodney McKay said: 100%. I really hope it does, I'd try it myself but I don't have any space at the moment and don't have any of the supported games installed. Finding out how sparse HDR support was on PC was a pretty big bummer once I got the OLED Deck. Even using a website to look up what PC games had it, apparently the list included AutoHDR games which isn't something that works on Deck, so my list of supported games plummeted. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Reason why I like RTX HDR, and nVidia keeps getting my money. All none SDR game gets automatically converted and much more reliable than AutoHDR with better quality and compatible with even DX9 titles. You would hope AMD has a solution for thia on their own but they did just released super resolution video conversion not long ago so its possible they implement something like this in a driver level too and that will also benefit steamdeck I would imagine   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Leo-Tyrant said: Alright, will try it with Fallout 4 later tonight. Thanks again! Edit: Out of all of these config options, which one would give me the best "stock look but with actual good HDR implementation"? I don't want to mess around the overall look of the game, I dislike all reshade options out there. F4 HDR Mod Click to expand... Click to shrink... I haven't tried it in FO4, but basically just use the RenoDX tonemapper and adjust the nits to whatever your display supports. That should more or less be the SDR style gamma for darker shades, but with a far expanded top end. If you want more depth to the image, use gamma correction (if the option is available idk about fallout 4), or mess with some of the color correction sliders. But yeah, defaults should be what you want more or less.   Leo-Tyrant Member Jan 14, 2019 5,960 San Jose, Costa Rica Kickfister said: I haven't tried it in FO4, but basically just use the RenoDX tonemapper and adjust the nits to whatever your display supports. That should more or less be the SDR style gamma for darker shades, but with a far expanded top end. If you want more depth to the image, use gamma correction (if the option is available idk about fallout 4), or mess with some of the color correction sliders. But yeah, defaults should be what you want more or less. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Doesn't really work in F4 (Game hangs) unless you use a pre-release version of Reshade and ... indeed the game just get stuck when loading from the Main Menu. I'm interested in trying again in the future when it becomes a stable option. Right now Auto HDR just magically kicks in by itself. Will keep using that.  Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 FYI new win 11 update 24H2 is available earlyfor insider, allows HDR desktop and JXR images for background   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Leo-Tyrant said: Doesn't really work in F4 (Game hangs) unless you use a pre-release version of Reshade and ... indeed the game just get stuck when loading from the Main Menu. I'm interested in trying again in the future when it becomes a stable option. Right now Auto HDR just magically kicks in by itself. Will keep using that. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I just gave it a shot with that prerelease reshade and it works great for me. Looks incredible. I'm guessing it's a headache with other mods (especially something like puredark's dlss stuff).   gabdeg Member Oct 26, 2017 7,347 🐝 Gitaroo said: FYI new win 11 update 24H2 is available earlyfor insider, allows HDR desktop and JXR images for background Click to expand... Click to shrink... They should change the format for HDR screenshot to something that doesn't suck for sharing like Ultra HDR JPGs.   Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 gabdeg said: They should change the format for HDR screenshot to something that doesn't suck for sharing like Ultra HDR JPGs. Click to expand... Click to shrink... if you are talking about the game bar capture on windows, it does capture everything in two format from HDR source, JXR and PNG for SDR version of the same screenshot for sharing.  Fafalada Member Oct 27, 2017 3,388 Gitaroo said: and much more reliable than AutoHDR Click to expand... Click to shrink... Except it still doesn't work with multiple connected displays so for my use case it's supported by 0 games.   Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,902 Leo-Tyrant said: Alright, will try it with Fallout 4 later tonight. Thanks again! Edit: Out of all of these config options, which one would give me the best "stock look but with actual good HDR implementation"? I don't want to mess around the overall look of the game, I dislike all reshade options out there. F4 HDR Mod Click to expand... Click to shrink... IIRC Defaults should more or less match SDR at 200 nits in therms of shadows and midtones. ShortFuse himself said he likes those settings the most. Gitaroo said: Reason why I like RTX HDR, and nVidia keeps getting my money. All none SDR game gets automatically converted and much more reliable than AutoHDR with better quality and compatible with even DX9 titles. You would hope AMD has a solution for thia on their own but they did just released super resolution video conversion not long ago so its possible they implement something like this in a driver level too and that will also benefit steamdeck I would imagine Click to expand... Click to shrink... The problem with RTX HDR or other AutoHDR options is that it's just a (slightly) more sophisticated vivid mode. You can't recover dynamic range from the video signal by just cranking up the brightness, just like you can't recover dynamic range from the audio signal by just cranking up the volume. RTX HDR is HDR in the name only, always will be. If anything, it's a net negative because it distorts the perception of how HDR should look.  Last edited: May 23, 2024 gabdeg Member Oct 26, 2017 7,347 🐝 Gitaroo said: if you are talking about the game bar capture on windows, it does capture everything in two format from HDR source, JXR and PNG for SDR version of the same screenshot for sharing. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Well, if you take an HDR screenshot, it would make sense to want to share it in HDR and not tonemap it down to SDR. There are formats nowadays that allow this.   brain_stew Member Oct 30, 2017 5,997 Keeping tabs on this thread, there's a lot of games from the 360 generation that could really benefit from this, and Lost Planet is just about the perfect showcase.   Gitaroo Member Nov 3, 2017 9,840 Fafalada said: Except it still doesn't work with multiple connected displays so for my use case it's supported by 0 games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I believe nvidia themselves said they are working on a fix.   krs Member Oct 25, 2017 344 Any chance this will work on the Steamdeck/Linux?   Pargon Member Oct 27, 2017 13,988 A short example of what RenoDX can do in Tunic (which RTX HDR/AutoHDR can never do). View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhni-kugrl4 gabdeg said: They should change the format for HDR screenshot to something that doesn't suck for sharing like Ultra HDR JPGs. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yep. Trying to share HDR images on the web is a mess right now, and only UltraHDR JPGs work somewhat reliably. Unfortunately I think you still need the latest version of Photoshop to create those. krs said: Any chance this will work on the Steamdeck/Linux? Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'm not sure that ReShade add-ons are supported on Deck. It is possible to get DXVK-HDR working on Deck, but I think it's still in testing right now (the process of setting it up is quite involved). Rodney McKay said: Finding out how sparse HDR support was on PC was a pretty big bummer once I got the OLED Deck. Even using a website to look up what PC games had it, apparently the list included AutoHDR games which isn't something that works on Deck, so my list of supported games plummeted. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Other than a handful of very early HDR titles (like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided) just about anything with HDR support on console also has HDR support on PC. But on PC you also have the option of modding in HDR with RenoDX, DXVK-HDR, and Special K. brain_stew said: Keeping tabs on this thread, there's a lot of games from the 360 generation that could really benefit from this, and Lost Planet is just about the perfect showcase. Click to expand... Click to shrink... You're in luck.  Miker Member Oct 25, 2017 3,546 I've dabbled with the Deus Ex Mankind Divided version and it produces excellent results, imo. Much better than any auto-HDR algorithm.   Diemza Member Jun 30, 2019 117 Never heard of this thanks for the useful topic.   krs Member Oct 25, 2017 344 Pargon said: I'm not sure that ReShade add-ons are supported on Deck. It is possible to get DXVK-HDR working on Deck, but I think it's still in testing right now (the process of setting it up is quite involved). Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah I've not messed around much with ReShade at all really. There is vkBasalt which is a Linux-native equivalent and supposedly compatible with ReShade shaders. But it doesn't look like it supports ReShade add-ons. Maybe it's possible to run ReShade itself with add-ons through proton. Guess I'll have to experiment.   Zeliard Banned Jun 21, 2019 12,915 Curious about trying this out with Arkham Knight when I get home, that game still holds up visually so I imagine this produces pretty nice results.   joeblow Member Oct 27, 2017 3,351 Laker Nation Does it work on Windows 10?   IMACOMPUTA Member Oct 27, 2017 2,947 Fafalada said: Except it still doesn't work with multiple connected displays so for my use case it's supported by 0 games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... If you use Nvidia Profile Inspector it works with multiple displays.  OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Fafalada said: Except it still doesn't work with multiple connected displays so for my use case it's supported by 0 games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... IMACOMPUTA said: If you use Nvidia Profile Inspector it works with multiple displays. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Want to add that the nvidia inspector method works on multiple displays and even works with the new nvidia app installed, you just have to disable the overlay (for now). joeblow said: Does it work on Windows 10? Click to expand... Click to shrink... It should, I don't think it uses anything exclusive to Win 11.   Fafalada Member Oct 27, 2017 3,388 Pargon said: Other than a handful of very early HDR titles (like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided) just about anything with HDR support on console also has HDR support on PC. Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's surprisingly inconsistent actually - even in games released in last 5 years. Like none of Need For Speed games had a working HDR in over a decade (either missing entirely, or broken to the point game wouldn't even launch properly with HDR). No Man's Sky was broken for... at least 6 years... And that's just the high profile releases, it tends to be worse in indies (though admittedly - even console HDR support has been - less than great there lately).   Fafalada Member Oct 27, 2017 3,388 Kickfister said: Want to add that the nvidia inspector method works on multiple displays and even works with the new nvidia app installed, you just have to disable the overlay (for now). Click to expand... Click to shrink... Thanks - will try it out tonight.   Condwiramurs Member Nov 10, 2020 1,789 Fafalada said: It's surprisingly inconsistent actually - even in games released in last 5 years. Like none of Need For Speed games had a working HDR in over a decade (either missing entirely, or broken to the point game wouldn't even launch properly with HDR). Click to expand... Click to shrink... Heat and Unbound work and look just fine in HDR l, any issues are system related (which can happen easily with HDR, I had elden ring hdr break more than once after windows/driver updates)   Zeliard Banned Jun 21, 2019 12,915 Fafalada said: It's surprisingly inconsistent actually - even in games released in last 5 years. Like none of Need For Speed games had a working HDR in over a decade (either missing entirely, or broken to the point game wouldn't even launch properly with HDR). No Man's Sky was broken for... at least 6 years... And that's just the high profile releases, it tends to be worse in indies (though admittedly - even console HDR support has been - less than great there lately). Click to expand... Click to shrink... The Jurassic World Evolution games on PC have a remarkably and conspicuously poor implementation of HDR and I've always wondered if that fared better on console.  Pargon Member Oct 27, 2017 13,988 Condwiramurs said: Heat and Unbound work and look just fine in HDR l, any issues are system related (which can happen easily with HDR, I had elden ring hdr break more than once after windows/driver updates) Click to expand... Click to shrink... A lot of people seem to fight against the fact that if you're using an HDR display, HDR is supposed to be enabled in Windows - and refusing to do that seems to cause problems. Some games do still use things like NVAPI for HDR rather than Windows' native API, which can require fullscreen exclusive mode and potentially break when alt-tabbing; but running games that way would be equivalent to how they are on a console anyway. And Special K can generally fix that with its "fake fullscreen" mode.  Fafalada Member Oct 27, 2017 3,388 Condwiramurs said: Heat and Unbound work and look just fine in HDR l, any issues are system related (which can happen easily with HDR, I had elden ring hdr break more than once after windows/driver updates) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Heat was broken on NVidia cards last time I checked - the same launch bug issue persisted for years after too. I could only get into game by forcing HDR to off, tell the game not use it and then switch to auto-HDR later. Unbound I forget, it had a lot of issues running on a 2080ti for some reason but maybe HDR itself was fine.   Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,902 Fallout 76 mod is out. RenoDX - HDR Mod Rewrite of the graphics pipeline to add HDR and controls for LUTs, color grading, and film grain. www.nexusmods.com   tokkun Member Oct 27, 2017 6,146 Koklusz said: The problem with RTX HDR or other AutoHDR options is that it's just a (slightly) more sophisticated vivid mode. You can't recover dynamic range from the video signal by just cranking up the brightness, just like you can't recover dynamic range from the audio signal by just cranking up the volume. RTX HDR is HDR in the name only, always will be. If anything, it's a net negative because it distorts the perception of how HDR should look. Click to expand... Click to shrink... That critique applies to all of these techniques. Modifying the pipeline gives you higher precision during the rendering process, but it doesn't give you any new information about the creative process. You can't extract the creative intent of the artists and colorists by just cranking up the pipeline's bit depth.  Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,902 tokkun said: That critique applies to all of these techniques. Modifying the pipeline gives you higher precision during the rendering process, but it doesn't give you any new information about the creative process. You can't extract the creative intent of the artists and colorists by just cranking up the pipeline's bit depth. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Agree, good thing RenoDX does much, much more than just cranking up the pipeline's bit depth.   Last edited: Jun 9, 2024 leng jai Member Nov 2, 2017 15,404 Does anyone have issues in Hifi rush where the whole image becomes momentarily washed out depending on where your turn the camera?   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 leng jai said: Does anyone have issues in Hifi rush where the whole image becomes momentarily washed out depending on where your turn the camera? Click to expand... Click to shrink... It could be a missed shader, the developer shortfuse is extremely responsive to bug reports, it would be worth joining the discord and letting them know.   OP OP Kickfister Member May 9, 2019 2,998 Bumping this thread because there's been a lot of progress and a lot of new games with support! I've also updated the post with a list of games that I compiled through Nexus, the Github page, and threads on the discord. If anybody has feedback on the status of any of the games listed (or if I missed some), let me know and I'll try to keep this list decently updated.   Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,902 Kickfister said: Bumping this thread because there's been a lot of progress and a lot of new games with support! I've also updated the post with a list of games that I compiled through Nexus, the Github page, and threads on the discord. If anybody has feedback on the status of any of the games listed (or if I missed some), let me know and I'll try to keep this list decently updated. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Great job!  

Judging from the number of gleeful screams heard throughout its PAX East Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy showcase presentation, Wizards of the Coast may have nailed its highly anticipated RPG crossover. The two-hour presentation, which you can watch above, rips open the new packs to reveal everything from Chocobos to luscious land cards inspired by famous Final Fantasy locations. While Wizards previously unveiled cards for the set back in February, the PAX East walkthrough gives fans a clearer idea of not just what they’ll see in the summer-release set, but how they’ll play. On top of deep dives on the cards, Wizards also announced the return of acclaimed series artist Yoshitaka Amano, who illustrated this new take on Kefka for the set, among many other cards. Magic the Gathering – Final Fantasy is the latest tie-in set for Wizards, which now boasts crossovers with everything from Lord of the Rings to Marvel and Spongebob. The release is expected to be massive — and not slowed down at all by economic shake-ups throughout the world, according to Hasbro’s chief executive Chris Cocks. In April, Cocks said Final Fantasy was already the best-selling set in MTG history. And yet we’re still a month away. Magic the Gathering – Final Fantasy arrives on June 13 (but here’s how to pre-order the set if you need those packs on day one).

As reported earlier this week, Epic Games founder, president, and largest shareholder Tim Sweeney was featured in a massive interview with Lex Fridman. The highlight of the conversation was the unexpected mention of Unreal Engine 6 progress, but in the four-hour-long chat, Tim Sweeney also addressed some of the feedback on the Epic Games Launcher, which is often criticized in comparison to Valve's Steam client. Sweeney admitted to the launcher's faults, but also stressed that Valve has had a lot more time to mature its platform. I think one of the reasons that people characterize the Epic Games launcher as clunky is because the Epic Games launcher is clunky and we need to improve this. There's a lot of work going on there and, you know, I wish we'd gotten better at addressing quality of life features and prioritize them above all of the other features. Steam has 15 years of built-up work by many of the best programmers in the whole industry working on that. It's a much larger team working on Steam and a lot more time working on it, so we've had to make a lot of prioritization decisions about what do we support with the Epic Game Store and when. A lot of the time, it's been supporting commercial features like merchandising, offering multiple versions of a game for sale, and offering upgrades from the regular edition to the deluxe edition and other things that partners work. Other priorities have been quality of life and launcher load times and other things. And we've not put enough emphasis on the quality of life features.  We've recognized this very clearly multiple times, and we've gone through multiple refactorings. But that's definitely been a disappointment to us and to a lot of users. One thing it took us a while to realize was it's not in uniform. Depending on your proximity to a CDN and the size of your game collection, it can be either awesome or really clunky. And the users for whom it's really clunky are the people behind a large part of the complaints. I should also say that the Steam launcher, for a long time, from my memory, but also just looking online, was also very clunky in the beginning. While Sweeney has a point, it should be clarified that the Epic Games Launcher can no longer be considered at its beginning, having launched in December 2018. There's still a lot of room for improvement on the client, that's for sure. Deal of the Day

الذكاء الاصطناعي بيعلم نفسه وبيطور نفسه كمان! 😱 ثورة جديدة للذكاء الاصطناعي بدأت

Loosely Coupled Game Architecture with Event Aggregator posted in Sven's Dev Journal Published May 10, 2025 Imported Advertisement This article introduces the Event Aggregator pattern as a way to decouple game components. A (very) basic space shooter example illustrates how the pattern can be applied in practice. This article introduces the Event Aggregator pattern as a way to decouple game components. A (very) basic space shooter example illustrates how the pattern can be applied in practice.Read more Previous Entry Framework-independent Game Logic with Hexagonal Architecture Comments Nobody has left a comment. You can be the first! You must log in to join the conversation. Don't have a GameDev.net account? Sign up! shendriks Author Follow Advertisement Latest Entries View more Advertisement

The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has unionized. That includes nearly 200 developers across disciplines ranging from art and testing to engineering and design. Basically anyone who doesn’t have someone else reporting to them. It’s the second wall-to-wall union at the storied game maker since the World of Warcraft team unionized last July. Suggested ReadingOverwatch 2's New Story Missions: Worth The Money? Share SubtitlesOffEnglishview videoSuggested ReadingOverwatch 2's New Story Missions: Worth The Money? Share SubtitlesOffEnglish“Game developers behind Activision Blizzard’s hit franchise Overwatch have joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA), becoming the latest group of video game workers at Microsoft-owned studios to form a wall-to-wall union,” the CWA announced in a press release shared with Kotaku on Friday. “A neutral arbitrator confirmed today that an overwhelming majority of workers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation via an online portal.”The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA is just the latest group to organize at a Microsoft-owned game studio since the tech giant entered into a labor neutrality agreement. The policy shift took frustrations that bubbled up with management back in 2021 and funneled them into an objective with assurances that company leaders wouldn’t interfere. Like unions at Bethesda Game Studios and Raven Software, the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild now has to bargain for its first contract, a process that Microsoft has been accused of slow-walking as negotiations with other internal game unions drag on for years.“The biggest issue was the layoffs at the beginning of 2024,” Simon Hedrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, told Kotaku. “Up to that moment I’d been really happy in what I was doing.” He began as a long-time fan of World of Warcraft and started playing Overwatch from day one in 2016. In 2022 he was hired to work at Blizzard on quality assurance for the sequel’s versus modes and matchmaking. Hedrick has had up to eight game clients running simultaneously to test for issues and keeps a Corgi plush (“a mascot of Irvine campus #blizzlife”) by his work desk. On Thursdays he meets colleagues in the Blizzard Irvine campus library to play Magic: The Gathering. When I asked him what he loves most about working there, his answer was the same as everyone else’s: the people. When nearly 2,000 layoffs swept through Microsoft last year, including at Blizzard where a new game was canceled and several members of the Overwatch team were cut, it was a wake up call for Hedrick. “People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it,” he said. ‘What I want to protect most here is the people’The post-merger shockwave—Microsoft had officially wrapped its acquisition of Activision Blizzard only months earlier—was one catalyst for the organizing effort at Blizzard’s Team 4, which was originally formed in the late 2000s to create the company’s planned MMO Titan, before the troubled project eventually morphed into Overwatch. Foster Elmendorf, a senior test analyst, was at Blizzard for all of it after joining the company back in 2004, a dream job he secured simply by applying online at the time. Image: BlizzardHe said other big drivers pushing the Overwatch team to unionize included pay disparities, work-from-home restrictions, and wanting codified protections around things like crunch, time off, and severance in the event of layoffs. Organizing Blizzard employees stress that improving their working conditions can also lead to better games, while the opposite—layoffs, forced resignations, and uncompetitive pay can make them worse. Overwatch 2 staff were particularly upset last spring when changes to the company’s profit sharing program left them with zero bonuses for an entire year. “If [concessions] are given without organizing they can be taken away without it, too,” Elmendorf said. He currently helps oversee testing for in-game cosmetics from the concept phase through implementation. He loves making games and wants developers to have a seat at the table, not just to protect their own interests but to make the games better, to prioritize fun and not just profit. “For a long time time I felt the video game industry needed more organizing,” he told Kotaku. He later added, “It’s been 20 years of asking for better pay and it hasn’t happened yet.”2025 is an important year for Overwatch 2. Despite ditching much of its promised PVE content, the hero shooter rolled out some big-swing design initiatives, including a new mode called Stadium that incorporates MOBA elements like mid-match upgrades. Season 16 is currently underway and the team just announced a Street Fighter VI collaboration that all but transforms existing characters into Capcom fighters like Ryu and Chun-Li.The effort to unionize the Overwatch team hasn’t just led by quality assurance testers. Other disciplines were also involved. UI artist Sadie Boyd became part of the push immediately after joining Blizzard last September, just as another round of layoffs was sweeping through Microsoft. She said someone posted a link to sign a union card in one of the Blizzard Slack channels, which she did immediately. After all, she’d already been part of a union drive at Prey and Redfall maker Arkane Austin before it had been shut down by Microsoft earlier in the year. “We’re not just a number on an Excel sheet,” Boyd said. “We want to make games but we can’t do it without a sense of security.” Unionizing doesn’t make a studio immune to layoffs or being shuttered, but it’s the first step toward making companies have a discussion about those things with employees rather than just shadow-dropping them in an email full of platitudes. Boyd sees the Overwatch union as a tool for negotiating a range of issues, like if and how generative AI is used at Blizzard, as well as a possible source of inspiration to teams at other studios. “Our industry is at such a turning point,” she said. “I really think with the announcement of our union on Overwatch...I know that will light some fires.”.

In this guest post, Everguild’s team discusses the studio’s upcoming collectible card game for Steam, iOS, and Android – Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge – and how they leveraged the best elements from past successes, elevating them with the latest development tools.We are Isabel Tallos (co-founder and art director) and Cesar Rios (game director), leading the development of Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge at Everguild. For this ambitious project, the studio’s third and largest to date, we’ve leveraged the best elements from Warhammer The Horus Heresy: Legions, and elevated our work using the latest development tools and a lot of craftsmanship.Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge aims to become a reference for quality, depth, and innovation among digital collectible card games. One of its most striking features is the approach our team has taken to depict the scenarios where battles take place.Most card games use a top-down perspective, but in Warpforge all units become “physical” tokens in battle. They fight in astonishing scenarios that provide an immersive experience of leading a player’s army in battles across the Warhammer 40,000 universe.In this deep dive, we’ll examine the design and technical challenges that led to these battle backgrounds, and the tools and processes we used to create them.Building on a successful foundationThe approach we take in Warpforge draws from the experience of Horus Heresy: Legions, our previous card game in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Originally a mobile game, the scenarios and game logic were done in 2D, faking the perspective to create the illusion of being 3D. This helped keep the game lightweight and able to run on low-spec devices.However, building the scenario and logic in 2D caused important limitations when trying to create VFX for the different cards and abilities, and even more so when trying to animate or add VFX to the background itself.Benefits and challenges of 3D scenariosTo make the scenarios for Warpforge as stunning and immersive as the team wanted, and to elevate the card’s VFX to the next level, it was essential to create them in 3D. Moving to 3D enabled us to stop faking positions, scales, and rotations and just do things in a more natural way. This led to better quality VFX and faster production times.From the start, we wanted our 3D scenarios to maintain the exact same visual aspect as our amazing 2D concept art. When using the usual 3D asset production workflow for creating 3D assets (concept, modeling, unwrap, and texturing), some deviations were introduced in each step, making the final result different from the original concept art.Since the game will be released on mobile, creating high-fidelity 3D assets on less powerful devices risks introducing performance problems, like frame rate or memory issues, and increased loading times. Add to this increased production time when executing this workflow properly for each of the scenarios, and it was clear that we needed a different approach.Camera projection mappingAfter numerous attempts with different approaches, the main breakthrough was the idea of using camera projection mapping. This technique, also known as spatial augmented reality, consists of “projecting” 2D textures over 3D surfaces or objects, creating a “projected texture.” It makes flat surfaces appear to have depth, creating the illusion of very detailed 3D objects while using extremely simple geometric shapes. It also allows for some limited camera movement to further convey the impression of being immersed in a fully 3D space.With this approach, we managed to get all the benefits of a 3D scenario without most of the drawbacks. It allowed us to faithfully keep the art style and level of detail of the concept art, without having to recreate it through 3D assets. It also requires very little processing power at runtime, allowing the game to run perfectly even on low-spec devices. Plus, the end result requires much less work and cost than creating full 3D environments.Compared to a full 3D environment, a scenario built with camera projection mapping doesn’t allow for a lot of camera movement, so it’s clearly not a valid solution for many types of games. For a card game like Warpforge in which the camera is mostly static, though, it is a fantastic solution.Creation processThe process of generating a scenario has several steps. For Everguild, it starts with the creation of a placeholder scenario directly in Unity using simple primitives. It consists only of a floor plane and some vertical cubes to help find the camera perspective that best matches the desired gameplay.Once everything is set up correctly, we capture an image from the camera perspective to send to the painting software. Using the Unity FBX Exporter, we export the 3D placeholder scenario, including the camera position and lens parameters, so we can import it into Blender.Taking the exported image as perspective reference, the concept artists draw the scenario. They have total creative control without any type of restriction, because whatever they do will be translated 1:1 to the game. Concept artists not only draw the scenario itself, but also the visual effects (VFX). Those will be used later as reference, even as textures, for the VFX artists. In this step, it is essential to properly organize the file in layers, always drawing whatever is behind the objects, so that we can export the different layers separately later.Once the concept art is ready, it is brought into Blender, where each element is projected onto a simple 3D object. This projection technique eliminates the need for the 3D artist to laboriously create custom UVs for every object, since the camera projection mapping automatically calculates them. The 3D models are then exported back to Unity. Here, using custom Editor tools, a final pass takes place where the various texture layers are combined into a cohesive atlas texture.This process not only optimizes memory usage and the game’s size, but also minimizes the batch count. Now, the scenario looks exactly like the concept, but we can take it a bit further.Bringing scenarios to lifeAfter creating the 3D scenario concepts, it’s time to bring them to life with a range of different tools. For example, a camera flyover at the start of the match helps provide a sense of depth and immersion, though the path needs to be carefully chosen to work around the limitations of the projection mapping technique.We use a combination of Shader Graph and Render features to craft an array of captivating effects, including dynamic water, blurred planar reflections, vortex portals, and more. These effects are seamlessly integrated with particle effects using both Shuriken and VFX Graph. VFX Graph is used for implementing more complex effects. However, since it relies on compute shaders, we always ensure the availability of a fallback version for devices that don’t support it.Each effect is meticulously designed to align with the original vision from the concept artist, ensuring a cohesive and immersive experience.Bringing processes to lifeAfter a painstaking research process involving the design, art, and technical teams, we’ve developed an approach to creating 3D scenarios which meets all of our core criteria: Stunning aesthetics, a sense of immersion, efficient development workflow, and strong performance on all devices.We believe there are many games which could benefit from these processes, particularly those with limited camera movement. We hope this post will prove useful to some developers. Most importantly we hope players will enjoy diving into the grim, dark universe of Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge when it’s released.The game is currently in its closed alpha phase and due for release on Steam, iOS, and Android before the end of the year. To learn more about the multiplatform release, check out Everguild’s recent case study. Read more Made with Unity stories straight from the developers here.

Much like HTTP and REST standardized how web applications connect to services, MCP standardizes how AI models connect to tools.Read More

Much like HTTP and REST standardized how web applications connect to services, MCP standardizes how AI models connect to tools.Read More