NVIDIA will add a monthly playtime cap to GeForce Now starting next year

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Some big changes are coming to NVIDIA’s GeForce Now streaming service. In a blog post published Thursday, the company said it would introduce a monthly playtime allowance. Starting January 1st, 2025, new GeForce Now subscribers will be able to play for up to 100 hours every month before they’ll need to pay for additional playtime. Provided they signed up for the service before December 31, 2024, existing customers won’t see their usage capped until the start of 2026.

NVIDIA is also renaming GeForce Now’s Priority tier. As of today, the new Performance membership offers 1440p streaming, up from 1080p previously, with support for ultrawide resolutions and the ability for users to carry over their graphical settings between sessions. If you’re already paying for the Priority service, you’ll be automatically moved over to the Performance tier. Pricing remains at $10 per month.

A chart showing the different GeForce Now memberships, including the newly announced Performance tier.
NVIDIA

NVIDIA told The Verge the new playtime cap will allow it to avoid raising the price of GeForce Now for “the foreseeable future.” Additionally, the company says 100 hours of monthly usage should “comfortably” accommodate 94 percent of its customers, who typically use the service less. Subscribers can also carry up to 15 hours of unused playtime over to the next month. People who hit the limit and want to continue playing can pay to get an additional 15 hours of access. Performance members will need to shell out $3 for that upgrade, while NVIDIA will charge Ultimate subscribers, who can play games at 4K and 120 frames per second, $6 for the privilege.

If you want to try GeForce Now, NVIDIA is currently offering a 25 percent discount on Performance and Ultimate day passes. Once again, if you decide to subscribe before the end of the year, your playtime won’t be limited until the start of 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/nvidia-will-add-a-monthly-playtime-cap-to-geforce-now-starting-next-year-160739646.html?src=rss

NVIDIA will add a monthly playtime cap to GeForce Now starting next year

Posted on by

Some big changes are coming to NVIDIA’s GeForce Now streaming service. In a blog post published Thursday, the company said it would introduce a monthly playtime allowance. Starting January 1st, 2025, new GeForce Now subscribers will be able to play for up to 100 hours every month before they’ll need to pay for additional playtime. Provided they signed up for the service before December 31, 2024, existing customers won’t see their usage capped until the start of 2026.

NVIDIA is also renaming GeForce Now’s Priority tier. As of today, the new Performance membership offers 1440p streaming, up from 1080p previously, with support for ultrawide resolutions and the ability for users to carry over their graphical settings between sessions. If you’re already paying for the Priority service, you’ll be automatically moved over to the Performance tier. Pricing remains at $10 per month.

A chart showing the different GeForce Now memberships, including the newly announced Performance tier.
NVIDIA

NVIDIA told The Verge the new playtime cap will allow it to avoid raising the price of GeForce Now for “the foreseeable future.” Additionally, the company says 100 hours of monthly usage should “comfortably” accommodate 94 percent of its customers, who typically use the service less. Subscribers can also carry up to 15 hours of unused playtime over to the next month. People who hit the limit and want to continue playing can pay to get an additional 15 hours of access. Performance members will need to shell out $3 for that upgrade, while NVIDIA will charge Ultimate subscribers, who can play games at 4K and 120 frames per second, $6 for the privilege.

If you want to try GeForce Now, NVIDIA is currently offering a 25 percent discount on Performance and Ultimate day passes. Once again, if you decide to subscribe before the end of the year, your playtime won’t be limited until the start of 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/nvidia-will-add-a-monthly-playtime-cap-to-geforce-now-starting-next-year-160739646.html?src=rss

Death Stranding unexpectedly hits Xbox Series X/S

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Xbox Series X/S owners (and Amazon Luna+ subscribers) can now spend dozens of hours scratching their head while playing Death Stranding. Hideo Kojima’s baffling walking sim has just hit those platforms without prior notice on its fifth anniversary.

To mark the occasion, Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is 50 percent off on Xbox, PC, iPhone, iPad and Mac. The discount isn’t available on PlayStation, where the game debuted all the way back in 2019 (Sony is the publisher on PlayStation, while 505 Games handled duties on other platforms). The base game is on the PS Plus Extra and Premium tiers.

Amazon Prime members will also be able to stream the Director’s Cut edition on Luna at no extra cost throughout December. You can keep going on Luna+ in the new year.

In Death Stranding, you play as Sam Porter Bridges, a courier of sorts who aims to reconnect America’s remaining survivors after a cataclysmic event that blurs the plane of existence between the living and the dead. Oh, and Bridges carries around an unborn fetus in a bottle that can detect creatures from the land of the dead. It’s all very strange and still one of the most memorable gaming experiences of the last decade.

Alongside the surprise Xbox (and Luna+ release) and anniversary discount, developer Kojima Productions had some other news about the franchise. It now fully owns the Death Stranding intellectual property. Sony, which financed the original game, previously held a stake and owned the trademark.

A sequel to Death Stranding is in the works. It’ll be a Sony-published PS5 exclusive at the outset and it’s slated to arrive next year (it’s a fairly safe bet that we may see more at The Game Awards next month). A Death Stranding movie is also on the way, while Kojima Productions is working on other games, including Xbox horror title OD and an action-espionage game for PlayStation.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/death-stranding-unexpectedly-hits-xbox-series-xs-153652927.html?src=rss

Death Stranding unexpectedly hits Xbox Series X/S

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Xbox Series X/S owners (and Amazon Luna+ subscribers) can now spend dozens of hours scratching their head while playing Death Stranding. Hideo Kojima’s baffling walking sim has just hit those platforms without prior notice on its fifth anniversary.

To mark the occasion, Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is 50 percent off on Xbox, PC, iPhone, iPad and Mac. The discount isn’t available on PlayStation, where the game debuted all the way back in 2019 (Sony is the publisher on PlayStation, while 505 Games handled duties on other platforms). The base game is on the PS Plus Extra and Premium tiers.

Amazon Prime members will also be able to stream the Director’s Cut edition on Luna at no extra cost throughout December. You can keep going on Luna+ in the new year.

In Death Stranding, you play as Sam Porter Bridges, a courier of sorts who aims to reconnect America’s remaining survivors after a cataclysmic event that blurs the plane of existence between the living and the dead. Oh, and Bridges carries around an unborn fetus in a bottle that can detect creatures from the land of the dead. It’s all very strange and still one of the most memorable gaming experiences of the last decade.

Alongside the surprise Xbox (and Luna+ release) and anniversary discount, developer Kojima Productions had some other news about the franchise. It now fully owns the Death Stranding intellectual property. Sony, which financed the original game, previously held a stake and owned the trademark.

A sequel to Death Stranding is in the works. It’ll be a Sony-published PS5 exclusive at the outset and it’s slated to arrive next year (it’s a fairly safe bet that we may see more at The Game Awards next month). A Death Stranding movie is also on the way, while Kojima Productions is working on other games, including Xbox horror title OD and an action-espionage game for PlayStation.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/death-stranding-unexpectedly-hits-xbox-series-xs-153652927.html?src=rss

Modular keyboard concept can help solve a decades-old usability problem

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Although we see dozens of computer keyboard designs these days, the basic layout of the device hasn’t changed since the very first model came out. Even if you consider variants of the QWERTY standard like AZERTY or Dvorak, the standard has remained the same over the years, which means carrying over most of the usability and ergonomic problems that were there from day one. The “10 key” numeric keypad, for example, is always on the right side, with a bias towards right-handed people.

That’s not exactly a problem for TKL or “Ten Keyless” keyboards, but that does mean buying a separate numpad that doesn’t integrate well with the rest of the keyboard, both functionally and aesthetically. This keyboard concept takes a shot at solving that long-standing handedness problem and its solution is to let you design your keyboard layout to your needs and preferences.

Designer: Alexey Prokopenko

It’s easy enough to just buy a TKL keyboard and a numpad separately, allowing you to arrange the two as you see fit. That, however, only works for that combination, and even then it’s not always a pretty sight. The visual and functional disconnect between these products can also have a subtle effect on our subconscious, just like how clutter or disjointed styles can trigger our minds in ways we don’t realize.

A modular design like the Connect concept helps solve this problem. In a nutshell, you can place a numpad module to the right or left of the “main” TKL keyboard in a way that physically connects the pieces. Since they’re from the same system, they also share the same aesthetic, which is a matte black in this case.

Of course, the beauty of a modular system is the flexibility it offers. Not only can you switch the position of the numpad on either side on a whim, you can also connect something else there or have a different module on the opposite end simultaneously. You can, for example, have a trackpad or a macro keyboard on either side. The choice is totally yours and can be changed dynamically depending on your work, need, or mood.

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If there’s one oddity to this design concept, it would be that the function key row is also an optional module. Granted, some Bluetooth keyboards actually exclude this row, forcing users to make complicated keystrokes to activate the functions. In this case, however, removing that row would create an imbalance when a module is attached to the left or right side of the keyboard. Most people will probably prefer to have that function row there all the time anyway, making it a bit of an unnecessary design detail.

The post Modular keyboard concept can help solve a decades-old usability problem first appeared on Yanko Design.

The New Vauxhall Mokka: Prices and Specs Unveiled!

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Vauxhall Mokka

As the world continues to embrace the shift towards sustainable transportation, the automotive industry is witnessing a surge in the popularity of electric vehicles (EVs). The growing demand for eco-friendly and cost-effective mobility solutions has prompted manufacturers to develop more accessible and affordable EV options. Vauxhall, a renowned British automaker, is at the forefront of […]

The post The New Vauxhall Mokka: Prices and Specs Unveiled! appeared first on Geeky Gadgets.

No Man’s Sky gets cross-platform saves and PS5 Pro enhancements

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When No Man's Sky was launched in 2016, Hello Games made it available on the platforms available at the time, namely the PC, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Over time, it was also released for the PS5, the Xbox Series X and S consoles, the Nintendo Switch, the PS VR1 and 2, as well as other virtual reality devices for computers. Now, the developer is rolling out cross-saves and cross-plays to all those platforms so fans can pick up from where they left off even if they switch devices. 

Hello Games said adding the ability to transfer saves has been especially difficult for its team, since No Man's Sky players can spend thousands of hours exploring worlds and building elaborate bases. It likened cross-saves to moving houses — the "longer people have lived there the more complicated it is to move them," the developer explained. The company said it's been introducing the technology to the game little by little over the past six months to make it possible to launch the feature today. Players can link their accounts right now through the game's official cross-save page, but only a "subset of users" will see the option to select saves from multiple devices on the in-game save screen. The feature will be available to all players over the coming weeks. 

In addition to giving players the ability to play the same game across platforms, Hello Games is also rolling out the enhanced version of No Man's Sky for the PlayStation 5 Pro, which is coming out today. The console's AI-powered tech called the "PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution" upscales the game to 4K at 60 fps, though players can choose to explore worlds in 8K resolution at 30 fps instead. This enhanced version also comes with improved lighting, ultra quality reflections and higher quality ambient occlusion in all modes. All those features are making their way to the PS VR2 headset, as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/no-mans-sky-gets-cross-platform-saves-and-ps5-pro-enhancements-150011474.html?src=rss

No Man’s Sky gets cross-platform saves and PS5 Pro enhancements

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When No Man's Sky was launched in 2016, Hello Games made it available on the platforms available at the time, namely the PC, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Over time, it was also released for the PS5, the Xbox Series X and S consoles, the Nintendo Switch, the PS VR1 and 2, as well as other virtual reality devices for computers. Now, the developer is rolling out cross-saves and cross-plays to all those platforms so fans can pick up from where they left off even if they switch devices. 

Hello Games said adding the ability to transfer saves has been especially difficult for its team, since No Man's Sky players can spend thousands of hours exploring worlds and building elaborate bases. It likened cross-saves to moving houses — the "longer people have lived there the more complicated it is to move them," the developer explained. The company said it's been introducing the technology to the game little by little over the past six months to make it possible to launch the feature today. Players can link their accounts right now through the game's official cross-save page, but only a "subset of users" will see the option to select saves from multiple devices on the in-game save screen. The feature will be available to all players over the coming weeks. 

In addition to giving players the ability to play the same game across platforms, Hello Games is also rolling out the enhanced version of No Man's Sky for the PlayStation 5 Pro, which is coming out today. The console's AI-powered tech called the "PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution" upscales the game to 4K at 60 fps, though players can choose to explore worlds in 8K resolution at 30 fps instead. This enhanced version also comes with improved lighting, ultra quality reflections and higher quality ambient occlusion in all modes. All those features are making their way to the PS VR2 headset, as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/no-mans-sky-gets-cross-platform-saves-and-ps5-pro-enhancements-150011474.html?src=rss

Samsung Phone Factory Reset: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Samsung Galaxy

When you choose to perform a factory reset on your Samsung phone, you are essentially wiping all data and restoring the device to its original settings. This action is essential if you’re preparing to sell your phone or need to fix performance issues like sluggishness or persistent bugs. A factory reset can be a powerful […]

The post Samsung Phone Factory Reset: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Geeky Gadgets.