January 29, 20254 min readWhich Foods Are the Most Ultraprocessed? New System Ranks ThemScientists have created a ranking of grocery store items based on their degree of processingBy Lori Youmshajekian edited by Tanya Lewis Ugurhan/Getty ImagesMost grocery stores seem to offer endless options in their aisles, which are full of cereals, pastas and baked goods available in hundreds of shapes and flavors. But a closer look at the ingredient lists of these foods shows that for some of them, theres not much choice at all. A new study has found that most of the products on our grocery shelves have one thing in common: theyre highly processed.Grocery stores, not fast-food outlets or convenience stores, are the primary source of ultraprocessed foods in U.S. diets. Such foods are made using industrial processes and ingredients that arent found at home. To measure just how prevalent these foods are on shelves, researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to analyze more than 50,000 items at three major stores that sell groceries in the U.S.: Whole Foods, Walmart and Target. The results, published on January 13 in Nature Food, revealed that highly processed options dominated the inventory at all three retailers. But Walmart and Target stocked a higher proportion compared with Whole Foods, which offered a slightly greater variety of minimally processed choices.Having a wide array of brands on the shelves gives shoppers the illusion of choice, says study co-author Giulia Menichetti, a statistical and computational physicist at Brigham and Womens Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Despite the variety of packaging, most ultraprocessed foods share a common formula: theyre high in sugar, salt, and oil and typically contain additives that enhance their flavor, color and shelf life. Certain industrial processes also alter the texture of the raw ingredients, and this can strip foods of their nutrients.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Amanda Montaez; Source: Prevalence of Processed Foods in Major U.S. Grocery Stores, by Babak Ravandi et al., in Nature Food. Published online January 13, 2025 (data)Diets high in ultraprocessed foods have been linked to poor health, including a higher risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But not all of these foods are equally bad for you. A 2024 study by researchers at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health found that diets high in sugary drinks and processed meats were associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than diets low in these foods, but the opposite was true for breads, cereals, yogurts and dairy desserts. While these foods can be part of a healthy diet, the new findings show that options within those categories can be limited. Among breads, for example, consumer choices are often dominated by shelf-stable varieties that contain added sugar and other additives instead of whole-wheat bread without additives, a type that is minimally processed.Blaming the ultraprocessing of foods alone might oversimplify the problem, says Maya Vadiveloo, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island and chair of the American Heart Associations lifestyle nutrition committee. Diets high in ultraprocessed foods are often dominated by items loaded with saturated fats, salt and added sugar, Vadiveloo says, which suggests some harm might come from poor nutrient balance rather than processing alone. But some research suggests that overconsumption of ultraprocessed foodswhich often lack protein and are designed to be easy to eat and highly palatablecan lead to weight gain, too.While researchers learn more about the specific harms of ultraprocessed foods, the challenge for consumers lies in the limited alternatives available. In some food categories, consumers face little to no real choice, according to the new findings. Certain productssuch as chips, bread and pizzawere almost universally ultraprocessed across the three stores. By contrast, other categories such as cereals, milk and snack bars offered more options that ranged from minimally processed to highly processed.But the choices depend on where you shop. The cereals at Whole Foods, for example, had a wider range of processing and contained relatively less sugar and fewer flavor additives compared with the other two chains cereals, which were far more likely to contain corn syrup.Affordability complicates the picture. Generally, as the level of processing increased, the price per calorie decreaseda trend that was most pronounced in soups, cakes, macaroni and cheese, and ice cream. On average, ultraprocessed foods cost about half as much as their minimally processed counterparts, a practice that reinforces nutritional inequalities, Menichetti says. This is hitting a specific segment of the population, she says.The real proportion of ultraprocessed foods on our shelves could be much, much higher than has been reported, says Barry Popkin, a distinguished professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study. He says the authors used a guesstimate of what foods counted as ultraprocessed, as well as a sample representing about an eighth of the unique packaged foods in the U.S.The new scoring system marks a shift from the widely used NOVA classification, which defines ultraprocessed foods as those containing additives or industrial ingredients. The authors system, called FPro, goes a step further. It estimates the degree of processing by analyzing a foods nutrient profilein other words, it recognizes that processed foods exist along a spectrum. The team is now refining the model to predict the specific industrial processes a food undergoes before reaching shelves.Beyond the complexities of scoring processed foods, Popkin offers a simple rule of thumb: shop for items around a stores perimeter as much as your budget allowsthe produce, the fish, the dairy, he suggests. And while a processing score might distinguish between similar-looking items, less processed doesnt necessarily mean healthy, either. A cookie is still a cookie, Vadiveloo says, no matter how processed it is.

Nintendo loses trademark fight against Super Mario supermarketStore subject.Image credit: Super Mario / Nintendo News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Jan. 29, 2025 A Costa Rican supermarket has claimed victory against Nintendo in a trademark battle over its name: Super Mario.The Super Mario shop in San Ramn is allegedly named as such because it is a "super" market run by a local man named Mario. But despite trading under the Super Mario name for decades, Nintendo recently took an interest when Mario's son Charlito attempted to renew the shop's registered trademark.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Super Mario is one of the game's we'd like to see on Nintendo Switch 2.Watch on YouTubeIn a post on the shop's Facebook page, which he maintains alongside working in his dad's shop, Charlito says he first registered Super Mario shop as a brand shortly after graduating from university in 2013. Last year it was time to renew the registration, Charlito stated, which prompted Nintendo to get involved. "Thank you enormously to my legal advisor and accountant Jos Edgardo Jimenez Blanco who took care of the registration and the subsequent fight for the right to a trademark," Charlito wrote. "For a moment we thought about throwing in the towel, how were we going to win the [fight against] such a commercial monster? More with the amount of legal documents submitted by them to ensure the victory."Well, by that Edgardo and I stood firm and a few days ago we received the good news," he continued. "SUPER MARIO is here to stay."While Nintendo has trademarked the use of Super Mario worldwide under numerous categories, including video games, clothing and toys, it appears the company did not specifically state anything about the names of supermarkets.This, Charlito says, was the key factor in the decision by Costa Rica's trademark authority, the National Register, to side with the supermarket. Charlito (left) holds up a sign stating 'Support local businesses'. | Image credit: Super MarioApart from the Super Mario name, the shop's logo is otherwise devoid of reference to Nintendo. It's a simple yellow and dark blue design with the wording: "Super Mario - Su lugar de confianza" which translates to "Super Mario - your trusted place".Further celebrating Super Mario's victory, Charlito posted a video showing his dad Mario in the background."That man you see there, he is Don Mario, he is my dad, and he has 52 years of being here and he is Super Mario," Charlito said. "Well now, we are trending, everyone is talking about us for the resolution by the National Register that gave the decision in our favour for the brand Super Mario - which, by the way, here you can ask the cashiers for a sticker."At this point in the video, Charlito holds up a free sticker customers can collect with the shop's Super Mario logo on.Charlito concluded by saying he's just happy for his dad - whose hard work in the shop is always underappreciated.Nintendo is no stranger to legal battles over its products. This month, a Nintendo legal executive explained why the firm was taking an ever stricter view on illegal emulation.

In Robert Walser's short fiction book The Walk, a young writer decides to step away from his desk and stroll through the country town he lives in. On the outskirts, where small farms and the occasional factory give way to open countryside, he discovers two children playing in the middle of an empty road. After a moment of admiration, his mood sours when he remembers country roads were made for cars, not kids. "I never shall understand how it can be called a pleasure to hurtle past all the images and objects which our beautiful earth displays, as if one had gone mad and had to accelerate for fear of despair," he thinks.I've started to have similar thoughts in recent years about video games, which can sometimes feel less like pastimes than race cars for the imagination, speeding players through their off-hours on manic itineraries of objective markers, skill tree upgrades, crafting materials, and season pass checklists. They burn time like petrol and leave behind a compulsive obsession that hangs over the mind like smog, lingering for days or weeks.That may be why, when I discovered DayDream Gaming's YouTube channel last year, in the unassuming form of a three-hour video titled "[4K] Night Walk in Hogwarts Legacy - Relaxing Tour in the South Coast", I had the impression of clouds parting, like those extraordinary photos from the early days of Covid-19 lockdowns, when emissions from commuter traffic plummeted and skies all over the world suddenly turned blue again. Though I have no interest in Harry Potter, and zero desire to play Hogwarts Legacy, I immediately clicked, curious to see how someone could take a tranquil three-hour walk through a video game without eventually being interrupted by enemy mobs and needy NPCs, blinking quest markers, UI gauges, floating text boxes, and glowing outlines around ordinary objects. Image credit: DayDream Gaming/Warner Bros GamesIn place of gameplay, a slow profusion of small details emerged, ones that I would almost certainly have sprinted past on my own: a cat walked onto a footpath, hoping in vain for some affection from the player character; in a village called Cragcroft, freshly lit fires were burning in the hearths of every house, but no one was inside to be warmed by them. Further along the coast, fresh rain drops spattered like freckles on the flagstones beside a ruined guard tower, while a pair of worker imps shoved each other in a strangely soundless argument like mascots miming at an amusement park. Overhead, two white points of light I had thought were stars jumped into motion, and they were small birds turning inland for reasons of their own.At first, they seemed like frivolous little details, but over time, it was hard not to be drawn in by the peculiarity of each new little wrinkle. They had the same languorous intrigue of Norway's infamous slow TV movement, which began in 2009 with a six-plus hour broadcast from a camera mounted to the nose of a train making its way across the country. That was later followed by 18 hours of salmon swimming upstream, a five-day feed from a cruise ship sailing to the Arctic Circle, and a 13-hour National Knitting Night, which climaxed with the creation of a sweater. "If you wait past the moment you feel you should cut away, a whole new story emerges," Rune Moklebest, an executive at Norway's NRK TV, said in a 2014 interview. "And then it doesn't take much to become dramatic." Image credit: DayDream Gaming/Warner Bros GamesDayDream Gaming is operated by a software developer in their late 30s, who lives in Helsinki. Over the last four years, they've uploaded nearly five hundred videos, some more than seven hours long, which have collectively generated over 30 million views. For source material, they've used popular blockbusters such as Elden Ring, Starfield, Red Dead Redemption 2, and less expected titles, including Assetto Corsa, Subnautica, and a demo environment created in Unreal Engine 5 by a small studio that sells art assets on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. "As long as I can make the game relaxing and calming," DayDream told me over email, "I'll seek to make something out of it."They began uploading in April 2020, a month after the Finnish Parliament first enacted a Covid-19 lockdown, closing the country's borders, cancelling school, and encouraging non-essential businesses to transition to remote work. It was a period when many flocked to YouTube, hoping to replicate the kinds of connections that made them feel part of a community. People went viral for sharing everyday tasks like redecorating their rooms, going to the gym, studying for school, or cleaning their bathrooms.It was during this period that DayDream Gaming stumbled on a few pleasant first-person videos of people walking in gentle rain storms. That led them down an algorithmic rabbit hole of first-person walking videos, something that had become a popular subgenre on YouTube, letting viewers imagine they were in downtown Cairo or Tokyo, or adventuring across a frozen glacier top in Iceland, or maybe even meandering down a white sand beach in Bora Bora instead of their lonesome lockdown living rooms. The rain-slicked streets of Los Santos at night. | Image credit: DayDream Gaming/Rockstar GamesThey wondered if anyone had tried to do something similar with video games, but the closest thing they could find was informational channels such as How Big is the Map, which records the time it takes to cross different game worlds. Inspired by the omission, they decided to try and make some comforting video game walking videos of their own. They started with an hour-long hike through the thawing Taiga forest in theHunter: Call of the Wild, a conveniently slow-paced game with ample options to minimize UI elements.That was followed by a night walk through downtown Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto 5, office buildings reflecting from pools of rainwater in the streets. Then there was a slow tromp through the jungle surrounding a Vietnamese banana plantation in Far Cry 5: Hours of Darkness; sight-seeing trips through ancient Memphis and Alexandria in Assassins Creed Odyssey; a sunset walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in Watch Dogs 2; and an eerie tour of downtown Doha in Battlefield 2042, its towering skyscrapers half-buried after a sandstorm.Soon, DayDream Gaming was so absorbed by the process of making new videos that they rarely had time or desire to play games for pleasure anymore. "If I do play, it's usually just testing new games or wandering around and thinking of new ideas for my videos," they say. Some videos can take weeks to prepare, testing different routes and tinkering with community-made mods to improve in-game lighting or deactivate enemy AI and event scripting. "I do quite a lot of planning for popular titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077," they say. "I've made many videos of these games, so with each new video, I try to create something new and interesting. Sometimes good ideas take time to develop but very seldom can I just start wandering around without any pre-planning." You'll see a lot of familiar faces wandering theh streets of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City. | Image credit: DayDream Gaming/CD Projekt RedIn a recent essay, Universal Paperclips designer Frank Lantz described first-person walking videos as a kind of "consciousness porn", something that makes the audience "feel like hitchhikers, riding along in someone else's car". Lantz describes his own attachment to Rambalac, a Russian man living in Japan who's been posting walking videos to YouTube since 2007: "In every frame we feel his presence, quiet, sweet, and a little sad, stopping to watch a black cat thread its way across a cluttered stoop, showing us the label of the green tea he's bought from a vending machine, looking away politely from a fellow pedestrian, or standing still, on a rainy night, before the red gate that marks the entrance to a Shinto shrine, entranced."It's tempting to look for the same kinds of personal traces in DayDream Gaming's videos, but they aren't really there. What can you really learn about a person from a slow camera pan at a cliffside vista? Or the stubborn refusal to press the sprint button? What they do offer, though, is an intimate portrait of all the revealing seams of automation that peak through each game's illusion of time and place: the repeated pedestrian models that pop up block after block in Cyberpunk 2077; the peculiarly mathematical way that bushes sway in Far Cry 6, as if their branches were rigged to strings being pulled from rafters in the sky; the almost Vaudevillian speed of a heavy oar boat moving up a river in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, jerking left and right more like an overburdened jet ski than a medieval rowing vessel.In a funny way, these flaws end up seeming like digital beauty marks, deepening the sense of enchantment produced by trying to squeeze the real world through the cramped keyhole of computer simulation. It's a familiar dynamic, in large part because of how often we try to squeeze ourselves through the keyhole of algorithmic recommendation engines, being herded from transient obsession to transient obsessiontiny houses, bread-making, van life, GPU benchmarks, Star Wars hotel reviews, and 4K walking videos. It's pleasurable to give yourself over to it, to become a passenger in the automation, moving down the never-ending chain of links with the same numbing speed of highway travel, staring out at the blurry landscape racing by as if that was the only place left in the world that you could call home.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereDiablo 4s Season of Witchcraft has been largely well received by most players of Blizzards ARPG. While some are still unhappyas usualwith the new update, players are enjoying the return of Witch Doctor abilities, albeit without a Witch Doctor class.With more grind and extra difficulty, it seems that Diablo 4 has found a strong footing after the last few seasons of rapid grinding pushed classic players away. However, Blizzard is still looking to the fans to find out if they actually did well this time.Blizzard asks fans if Diablo 4 is good nowIn a Twitter post by Diablo General Manager Rod Fergusson, players were asked about the state of the action-RPG after the release of Season of Witchcraft.In a simple poll, Ferguson asked players about the progression pace of Season 7 as Blizzard continues to aim for a perfect grinding balance that doesnt upset fans. (Impossible.)As if they were a demonic Goldilocks, players were given three options for the progression pace of Diablo 4 Season 7: Too Fast, Two Slow or Just Right.At the time of writing, players are split, but many are happy with the state of the game. 37% of players believe the games progression is still too fast and just 22% believe its too slow. However, 41% of players feel that Season 7 has finally nailed the games progression rate.Curiously, billionaire oligarch and internet cringe-inducer Elon Musk commented on the progression of Season 7, claiming that it seems about right. Totally unrelated, Musk recently admitted to paying other people to play Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 for him. Hopefully, those players also comment on the games balance.Nevertheless, it seems Diablo 4 is finally in a decent place. While the game launched with a classic feel, recent seasons have opted to speed through progression for instant gratification. Thankfully, it seems the game is slowly shifting back to a more Diablo 2-like feel.For morecoverage on Blizzards ARPG series, read about the alleged Switch 2 port for Diablo 4 or read about the studios new promise to stop D4 and D3 seasons from overlapping.Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide Nvidia has officially revealed the release date for the highly anticipated GeForce RTX 50 series of graphics cards, meant to supplant and replace the current 40 series. The new series promises to set new standards for gaming and AI-driven performance. With major upgrades in architecture, ray tracing capabilities, and new AI features, the RTX 50 series is designed to deliver next-gen experiences for gamers, content creators, and professionals alike.Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series release dateThe Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series is set to launch on January 30, 2025, for the RTX 5090 and 5080, while the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti will be released in February 2025. The laptop versions of the graphics cards will become available in March of 2025, except for the 5070, which will arrive in April.The availability should start in select markets across the globe at first. Officially, the rollout will vary by region, with North America and Europe expected to see stock on the same day. In other regions, such as Asia and Oceania, the cards will begin shipping in the following days, with some markets likely to experience slightly delayed availability. Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series expected pricingWhile there is no information about pricing for branded RTX 50 series cards, we have the baseline information for Nvidias reference GPUs. These could be subject to change, but as it stands, we can expect prices to be around the following:RTX 5070: Starting at $549 USDRTX 5070 Ti: Starting at $749 USDRTX 5080: Starting at $999 USDRTX 5090: Starting at $1999 USDNvidia GeForce RTX 50 series featuresThe RTX 50 series uses Nvidias Ada Lovelace 2.0 architecture, built on a 5nm manufacturing process. This should bring improvements in power efficiency, computing power, and better ray-tracing performance over the RTX 40 series. Notable specifications across the reference variants include:RTX 5090RTX 5080RTX 5070 TiRTX 5070CUDA cores217601075289606411Shader CoresBlackwellBlackwellBlackwellBlackwellTensor Cores5th Generation 3352 AI TOPS5th Generation 1801 AI TOPS5th Generation 1406 AI TOPS5th Generation 988 AI TOPSRay Tracing Cores4th Generation 318 TFLOPS4th Generation 171 TFLOPS4th Generation 133 TFLOPS4th Generation 94 TFLOPSBase Clock2.41 GHz2.62 GHz2.45 GHz2.51 GHzBoost Clock2.01 GHz2.30 GHz2.30 GHz2.16 GHzVRAM Memory32 GB GDDR716 GB GDDR716 GB GDDR712 GB GDDR7Memory Interface Width512-bit256-bit256-bit192-bitMain differences compared to the RTX 40 seriesWhile the RTX 40 series provided impressive performance for gaming and content creation, the RTX 50 series takes things a step further with several improvements, including the following:Ada Lovelace 2.0 Architecture: Improved for better ray tracing and AI performance, the new architecture aims to deliver smoother performance across next-gen workloads.GDDR7 Memory: A significant upgrade over the GDDR6X used in the RTX 40 series, GDDR7 offers faster memory speeds and improved bandwidth, optimizing performance for high-demand tasks like 4K gaming and AI-driven applications.Ray Tracing and DLSS 4.0: The RTX 50 series features even more powerful RT cores and Tensor cores, improving real-time ray tracing and supporting the latest DLSS 4.0 for even better upscaling and faster frame rates.AI Improvements: With further AI-based tools and workloads supported by upgraded Tensor cores, the RTX 50 series delivers stronger support for AI research, model training, and more sophisticated simulations.Related TopicsSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

Blender 'Storyliner' Storyboard Addon Review By SpitfireStoryboards on January 29, 2025 Add-ons Spitfire Storyboards gives an exceptionally in-depth review of the Storyliner add-on.This is a features overview of the addon Storyliner for blender. It is a powerful tool for storyboard, animatics, previs, shot creation, exporting shots, retiming scenes. Really robust addon and I highly recommend it.Links Blender Market: Storylinerhttps://a.blendernation.com/go/go.php?src=BN&url=https://blendermarket.com/products/storyliner&code=57dc75af5eade46296a7a7cb03452cbe

Power PointNvidia RTX 5080 review: the first, best bang-for-buck graphics card of this generationIf youve got $1000 to spend on a graphics card, the RTX 5080 is probably now the one to buy.Image credit: VG247 Article by Alex Donaldson Assistant Editor Published on Jan. 29, 2025 There are a few different headlines you should expect to see in discussion of Nvidias latest graphics card, the GeForce RTX 5080. So let me cut to the chase and summarize.First up: the 5080 is not a card that has evangelism-worthy performance gains over its predecessor. In terms of the raw rendering power improvement it sits firmly in the good-not-great category. But thats okay because of point two: the 5080 offers the best raw value in performance terms not only of this generation of cards so far - but one of the best weve seen in several years.These two concepts might seem vaguely at odds, but they really arent. The performance gains compared to last generations RTX 4080 Super, this cards direct predecessor, are on average somewhere between 10% and 15% - while retaining the same price point. This is a modest gain compared to what weve seen in the past, but its also a monetary bang-for-buck value demonstrated. But furthermore, the new generation 50 series GPUs have access to the full suite of RTX features that make a major difference to games - more on which later.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. One could dismiss this as marketing fluff, and Im sure some will. As embargoes lift I expect some reviews to lead with things like weaker than the 4090, which to be fair the 5080 is. But I think this is an upgrade to consider with some nuance. If you already have a 40-series GPU, you probably arent intending to drop near enough four figures on an incremental upgrade. This card probably isnt for you. But if youre the sort of person shopping in that price range with a card thats a couple of generations old, the 5080 becomes a strong proposition - and quite possibly the best card on the market in its price bracket, at least without delving into the quagmire that is the used market.Crucially, pretty much all of the upgrades as detailed in my RTX 5090 review make their way over to the 5080 as well. Theres the new form factor, better heat dissipation with snazzy liquid metal and a custom cooler design, and just generally a slick-looking design on the Founders Edition cards that I really rather love. Like the 5090, the 5080 shrinks compared to the previous generation - dropping from a hefty double-thick three-slot card to a more traditional two-slot design. This is a small change - but I actually think its rather important for this card.In real terms, if youre a normal person, I think the 5080 is the highest-end graphics card you should consider. Its true that the 90s are the top of the line - but the power level in those cards are for sickos, freaks, and people who need to do super challenging work like 3D rendering, complicated video editing or streaming setups, and so on. The same delineation was true for the 4080 and 4090 - but both were heaving three-slot cards. On the 90, the smaller form factor is a nice-to-have. But on the 80 cards, I actually think its important.To my mind, the average gamer doesnt tally with people who have cases and setups built to hold such a beast. By bringing the physical size of the GPU down and by keeping the price under that $1000 mark, the 5080 presents once more as something more suitable for all gamers who have a grand to burn and want the best performance for that money they can possibly get. Image credit: NvidiaPeople in that consumer bracket can as previously mentioned expect a gain of around 10-15% in raw rasterization performance - that is to say, how well the GPU renders your games without any additional features helping out - when compared to last years 4080 Super, which shipped at the same price. To back that up, lets talk broadly about a few benchmark games.If we hop into Cyberpunk 2077 with its settings maxed out but with no ray tracing or frame generation technology, I experienced more or less an exact 15% increase on the frames generated by the 4080 Super. Hop over to Alan Wake 2 and its a similar story, though with slightly less potency, offering a boost of 10%. Star Wars Outlaws is the same. The performance change is quite linear and predictable across all games be that at 4K or 1440p - almost always broadly the same percentage lift, always matching that initially set expectation.Each of these benchmarks underlines one other thing: despite that power boost over the 4080 Super, the 5080 remains around 10% behind the 4090. This may disappoint some. In previous generations, we have frequently seen the new generation of one Nvidia card match the performance of the last generations next card up. For instance, I loved that the 4070 had a power level similar to or in advance of the 3080 - that helped to make it feel like a full generational leap. Its undeniable that the 5080 doesnt accomplish that, with the 4090 leading it to the tune of up to 10% on average - but does it matter? Second-hand 4090s are still costing almost double what this card does on the second-hand market - so is the comparison even fair?This power boost might seem modest, but because the price has remained frozen at $999, in terms of value for money it still works out pretty well. Our buds at DigitalFoundry have put together a pretty fascinating chart, for instance, that shows that the 5080 is the single best GPU for the number of frames it generates on average per each dollar spent - the second place being the 3080, a card that at this stage is pushing five years old. Mercifully, power consumption remains quite close to the 4080 Super also - meaning itll cost about the same to run and avoids the eye-watering leap in running costs we saw in the 5090.In comparisons like this we have to step back from raw rendering and frame rate percentage increases from one generation to the next and take in the whole picture. That whole picture is more flattering than those first numbers would first present. Image credit: NvidiaTheres more than just the modest increase in raw power that this generations Blackwell architecture unlocks, however. Each 5080 of course packs in the fifth generation of the Tensor cores that unlock the RTX functionality, which in turn opens the door to a variety of software solutions that can transform games and productivity.As with previous generations, the charge on this front is led by Nvidia DLSS. The latest version is DLSS4, and is a key feature of the 50 series - as is the new Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) technology. This is the comeback to any perceived shortcoming in raw rendering upgrades: Nvidias technology beyond that feels quite unassailable, and the newest cards get the best and most powerful iterations of this tech.If youre unfamiliar, DLSS stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling. Its essentially a system that uses AI learning in order to help the graphics card to deliver a higher image quality without sacrificing frame rate. Its all a bit of smoke and mirrors - but its a rock solid bit of fakery that works brilliantly.Essentially, DLSS allows the GPU to render the game at a lower resolution than whatever your display throws before your gawping eyeballs. A lower resolution makes it easier to render more complicated things, like real-time ray tracing or just very taxing games, at a high frame rate. But DLSS then steps in and upscales the generated images - so you might render the game natively at something like 2K, but then DLSS will step in to give you a crisp 4K image. As the technology has improved, signs the image has been upscaled have diminished to be near imperceptible, while other potential pitfalls like lag have been offset by other innovations like Nvidias Reflex software.Multi-Frame Generation takes this to the next level. As well as upscaling an image, it allows the GPU to use AI to essentially create whole new frames out of nowhere, extrapolating from the frames its rendering in real-time. These fake frames can make a game appear smoother and easier on the eye, though they wont affect a games responsiveness. MFG is an all-new technology for this generation, and Id say its primary utility is in helping to get games up to 120 frames per second for 120hz displays.Both technologies work well, and serve a vital purpose. Even at 4K this card crushes Cyberpunk without ray tracing, offering up something silky and acceptable to even the more picky player. But flick on ultra level ray tracing in Cyberpunk and youll see that at 4K this is a card that still struggles to hit a solid 60fps with that technology enabled. Enable DLSS, however, and hitting 60fps with top-line ray tracing is a breeze.MFG can even put 120fps in sight on such settings - which is just proof that this technology is the future. At this stage, however, its hard to truly judge MFG - its impressive, but the limited suite of games available to test (which will expand to around 75 at launch) leaves me wanting to see it used more. Then again, I had the same skepticism about DLSS years ago - and now I use it without question. Image credit: NvidiaA lot of hardcore graphics nerds are completely reasonably going to tie themselves in knots over this. Do fake frames count? A lot of these people are trapped in the tradition of primarily being only interested in raw processing power - which I totally understand. But at this point this technology is an indelible part of the make-up of graphics card buying decisions. More and more games are supporting this sort of technology; its likely to be a vital component of the console market going forward, too. Its here to stay.When you consider that, one key element is clear: anyone buying a GPU like the 5080 is not only buying the raw compute power that Nvidias new Blackwell architecture unlocks - they are buying into the software assistance the card unlocks for high-end games. Like it or not, this is now a core part of Nvidias proposition. Sometimes those raw compute leaps are going to still be jaw-droppingly large - but not always. The 5080 is an example of that - where a modest but reasonable GPU upgrade in raw terms is heavily augmented by the other features the card brings to the table.I think, in honesty, by this point in the review you know where you stand. You know if the concept of a 15-20% boost in raw power is acceptable or a huge turn-off to you, you know how you feel about your current setup, and you know how likely you are to engage with DLSS4 and MFG. What I can say from my testing is that all these things work astonishingly well. The new Transformer model for DLSS is a huge upgrade and a particular favorite of mine - though that is also available on 40-series cards.That perhaps sums it up, though. If youre cruising on a 40-series GPU, many of the best features of the 50 series are available to you already via software updates. To those, this generation might prove a bit disappointing, a bit of a middle step. To anyone upgrading from something like a 30 series or older, the 5080 is a solid proposition at $1000 - a tantalizing upgrade thatll offer far more of a noticeable performance boost and new software tech you otherwise wouldnt have access to.In short, the 5080 is a strange graphics card. If you want the best GPU available up to $1000 this is the one to buy. But in a sense, in the current market, it is also the only one to buy in its class. Thats one bottom line. The other is that this doesnt hold the usual power gain youd expect from a generational shift - but software goes a long way to soften that fact. I expect itll be divisive - and I expect you already know if you want one or not.

Prison BreakWarhammer has let a fan-favourite 40k animator out of the basement, and weve finally got an Astartes 2 trailerSomeone left the door open and Syama has escaped. Now a whole team is releasing a new series of animations in 2026.Image credit: Warhammer News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on Jan. 29, 2025 Alarms are blaring at Warhammer HQ, as a prisoner has escaped from deep within the Imperial Palace. No, it's not Luther (again), and it isn't whatever's behind that mysterious numbered door either. It's Syama, the animator behind the hugely popular Astartes animation. They've vanished into thin air, but have left a trailer for Astartes 2 behind, which they (alongside a team of other talented animators) will be releasing in 2026.The trailer, which you can watch below, is a collection of clips showing Space Marines from various chapters doing what they do best: shooting big guns and fighting Xenos. Some of these clips come from the original teaser released by Syama a few years ago, while many of them are entirely new. It makes for a very good watch.Watch the Astartes 2 trailer here!Watch on YouTubeIt's of course worth noting that Syama hasn't spent all this time locked away, they've been working on the Secret Level 40k animation too, so they've had a chance to stretch their legs. But ever since they were hired people have been thirsty for some Astartes, which it seems we'll soon have.But the trailer also raises some interesting questions. If we check out the official Warhammer blog post for this new reveal, we're given some interesting additional info. "This teaser trailer is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show. Theres a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the nature of the final story... well leave you to speculate and start putting the pieces together yourselves."So none of the clips in this trailer will actually show up in Astartes 2 next year. Instead, it's offering a glimpse of the "former lives" of characters we'll see. A bit of speculation here, but this could mean one of two things. Either Astartes 2 will feature individual episodes with these characters doing seperate things alongside their chapters, be it fighting The Tau or clashing against Chaos, or they'll all come together in a single Death Watch Squad. The Death Watch, for those not aware, is basically a seperate Space Marine entity where marines from different chapters are sent to fight aliens. I'm currently leaning towards the Deathwatch idea, just because the blog mentioned a hint towards the final story, and the original Astartes series focused on a single squad doing its thing, but it truly could be anything. It does seem like a lot of work though, animating all these new shots just so none of them make it into the final project. I don't know about you, but I'm fiendishly waiting for 2026 to come around, and with it, more Astartes. Let us know below if you feel the same way!

The not-so-final frontier.When No Man's Sky first launched back in 2016, we never would have thought that it'd be getting this level of support nine years on, but here we are. Hello Games has today announced the first update of 2025, 'Worlds Part II', and it looks like a big'un.This one is a follow-up to last year's 'Worlds Part I' (who would have thought it?), once again focusing on adding an extra level of polish to the already extremely polished space adventure.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube794kCan you believe it's been nearly 14 years since Super Mario 3D Land launched on the 3DS? Yeah, it's making us feel pretty old too, don't worry.With no sign of a potential Switch port in the immediate future, we'll have to make do with the original 3DS version for now, but fear not, because a modder by the name of Cyboo has launched a new mod that might just extend your enjoyment that little bit more (provided you have the means to access it, of course).Dubbed Super Mario Expedition 2, the mod adds in a brand-new world to explore, and honestly, watching the above trailer, we actually had a hard time distinguishing the levels from Nintendo's own curated stages. That's a good thing in our eyes and demonstrates that Cyboo has focused more on good foundational mechanics over indulgent gimmicks.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube794kWatch on YouTube The download link can be found via the YouTube page in the above video, with the mod applicable for use in both Citra and the 3DS itself. If you search through Cyboo's previous videos, you'll also find a download link for the first iteration of Super Mario Expedition, just in case you want even more.It's making us genuinely yearn for a Switch port, but we reckon it's unlikely we'll get one anytime soon. Heck, if Nintendo is willing to remaster Donkey Kong Country Returns for a second time, then we're not sure if Super Mario 3D Land is particularly high on its list of priorities. The golden era of stereoscopic 3DIt's like Mario's jumping right at meLet us know in the comments below if you've opted to give this mod a try. What do you make of it? Would you like a Switch port of Super Mario 3D Land?[source youtube.com]Related GamesSee AlsoShare:02 Nintendo Lifes resident horror fanatic, when hes not knee-deep in Resident Evil and Silent Hill lore, Ollie likes to dive into a good horror book while nursing a lovely cup of tea. He also enjoys long walks and listens to everything from TOOL to Chuck Berry. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesOpinion: My Daughter Made Me Realise That Mario Wonder's Difficulty Options Need WorkYoshi or Nabbit, make your choiceNintendo Bags GLAAD Nomination For Paper Mario's Trans RepresentationAlongside the excellent Fear the SpotlightMario Movie Scores A New "Limited-Edition" Steelbook, Pre-Orders LiveA "Walmart exclusive"Random: Xbox Gets Its Own Shameful 'Mario Strikers' Knock-OffThe horrorrrrr...