Category: Virtual Reality

In brief: An apparent bug has been discovered in the motherboard management software from several leading board vendors that makes it incredibly easy to fry your X3D-based AMD CPU. We do not yet have a timetable for when safeguards will be installed so until then, be very careful when tinkering around in motherboard management software with these chips. One mistake and poof, your CPU could become a shiny desk ornament.

Igor’s Lab recently stumbled upon the issue while tinkering around in MSI Center. Using an MSI B550 Unify board with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, Igor noticed the software was seemingly detecting the chip as a standard Ryzen 5xxx, which does not have 3D vertically stacked L3 cache.

The extra cache is known to boost gaming performance but its physical presence also negatively impacts heat dissipation, which is one reason why it ships with slower clock speeds than the standard 5800X.

With the software unable to detect an X3D chip, it treats it like a standard Ryzen 5xxx and allows largely unfettered manipulation of the core multiplier and core voltage. Intrigued, Igor fiddled with the voltage settings and managed to kill the CPU in short order. He did not mention how much juice was fed to the chip to take its life but Tom’s Hardware notes that core voltage can be set all the way up to 1.55v.

Worse yet, the apparent bug has since been discovered in similar management software from ASRock, Asus and Gigabyte.

Just last week, renowned overclocker der8auer tried his hand at overclocking and overvolting the AMD Ryzen 7950X3D. Even with liquid nitrogen, the chip instantly died when the core voltage was set to 1.55v. der8auer barely made it out of the BIOS (and without any significant load) before things went south. Needless to say, he was surprised it died so quickly.

At the very least, it sounds like these extreme core voltage options should carry a firm warning before users are allowed to apply risky settings.

In brief: While Sony’s PSVR 2 is said to offer an excellent virtual reality experience, it seems asking $550 for the device wasn’t the best idea, especially at a time of economic uncertainty when people are tightening their belts. According to a new report, sales of the headset are off to a slow start, and a price cut might be necessary to avoid a total disaster.

Research firm IDC (via Bloomberg) estimates that Sony will likely sell about 270,000 units of the PSVR2, which launched on February 22, by the end of March.

Francisco Jeronimo, IDC’s Vice President of data and analytics, pointed to the shaky global economy as one the main reasons behind the PSVR 2’s disappointing start. At a time when utility prices are rising, interest rates are high, and many companies are cutting jobs, paying $550 for a virtual reality headset isn’t a big priority for most people.

“I suspect a price cut on the PSVR2 will be needed to avoid a complete disaster of their new product,” Jeronimo said.

Sony initially hoped to sell 2 million PSVR 2 headsets by March next year, but it revised that figure to 1.5 million. The PSVR 2 likely saw its biggest surge in sales during its first month of release, with purchases slowing down going forward. The Japanese gaming giant believes that the latest version of its console’s headset will be popular enough to outsell the original PSVR’s 5 million lifetime sales, which seems optimistic.

The PSVR 2 has won rave reviews for its impressive set of features, excellent controllers, and dual 2,000 x 2,040 OLED displays. But pricing the headset higher than the PlayStation 5 was always going to put some people off.

The news is yet another blow to the VR industry and, by association, the metaverse. Headset shipments were down 12% year-over-year in 2022, while Microsoft and Disney have laid off their entire metaverse teams as part of cost-cutting plans.

Meta, of course, still insists the metaverse will be the future of computing, but until VR becomes more accessible to the masses, that will probably remain Mark Zuckerberg’s unfulfilled dream.

In brief: CD Projekt Red hasn’t released a non-mobile game since 2020, yet last year was the second most-successful in the company’s history. It recorded an increase in revenue and net profit, much of which was due to an uptick in Cyberpunk 2077 sales, while operating costs fell.

CD Projekt Red’s latest financial results show that it brought in $222 million in revenue last year, up from the $207 million it made the previous year. Net profit was also up year-on-year, jumping 66% from $49 million in 2021 to $81 million in 2022. An 18% fall in operating costs also helped the company’s bottom line.

Much of the company’s good fortune last year resulted from increased Cyberpunk 2077 sales. The next-gen update in February 2022 helped its popularity, but the game’s big resurgence followed the debut of Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series. As it did with The Witcher, Netflix’s brilliant anime resulted in a surge in sales for CDPR’s game.

Last year’s boost still didn’t match the initial sales Cyberpunk 2077 enjoyed at release. Despite the many problems it experienced at launch, the game sold 13 million copies in ten days. As of September 2022, the total number of units sold was over 20 million worldwide. It faced plenty of criticism for the many bugs and performance issues, but updates have made the current Cyberpunk 2077 a lot closer to the game we were expecting in 2020.

“The popularity of the series (Edgerunners) and the positive reception of the update, released a week before the premiere, had a notable effect on Cyberpunk sales and general sentiment around the game, as evidenced by gamers’ reviews. This is a clear sign that deeper involvement in our franchises and expanding their reach is the right way to go,” said CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicinski.

CD Projekt Red added that it would reveal more information about the first (and only) massive story DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty, in a dedicated showcase this June ahead of its release sometime later this year.

CD Projekt Red has also restarted development of its Witcher spin-off Project Sirius, a spin-off developed by the company’s The Molasses Flood studio. There are plans to make several more Witcher games as well as a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. Check out all the details of those titles here.