RX6000 series - They’re here, multiple Tubers have their copies and reviews will be hitting shortly. They look good, they’re stout, we’re ready for reviews!

Smoking Xbox - Fake, X vs S - Image quality is really the only gameplay difference. Storage is your other factor $219 for the storage card. Your biggest selling point right now for both consoles is the updated library on GamesPass, you’re getting a giant backlog of games with many enhanced for “next gen” consoles.

External Storage - PS5 can not install, store or play any PS5 games on anything but the internal drive, update to come to allow storage swap, and the second M.2 slot isn’t usable right now either (not activated) . Xbox allows you to at least move things back and forth for storage needs. I can not 100% confirm or deny if you get the enhancements for the PS4 games on an external drive however, I see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to, and there are some current videos “confirming” this out on the internets now. You can literally plug and play your external HDD from your PS4 into your PS5 and play the PS4 games no problem as long as you’re using the same account on both consoles. Be sure to head to your settings in your PS5 and select the option to have “all ps4 games install to external drive”

EA Dynamic Difficulty - EA uses this system in FiFa 2020 to push their difficulty level in real time causing players to gravitate towards the player packs for more skilled or advanced players

Apple ARM - Benchmarks leaked multithreaded performance is quite good but everything is taken with a grain of salt at this point. Apple is incredibly strict with information leaking with new products like this, so this could be complete BS.

SpaceX Launch - It happened, without a hitch, was amazing to watch, booster touched down as it does which in itself is an amazing thing. We’re at a point where boosters are launching teams into space then returning on their own to be used again and again for similar missions.

From CNN - SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon capsule under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which, for the first time in the space agency's history, handed over much of the design, development and testing of new human-rated spacecraft to the private sector. NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing fixed-price contracts worth $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion, respectively, to get the job done. Development of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is still delayed because of major software issues detected during a test mission last year, but officials say that vehicle could be in operation next year.

Because these vehicles will technically be owned by SpaceX and Boeing, with NASA serving as a customer that buys missions for astronauts, the companies will also be able to use their vehicles to fly tourists, private researchers or anyone else who can afford a $50 million-plus ticket.

That decision wasn't without controversy, particularly in the Commercial Crew Program's early days. But Crew Dragon's success could be seen as a huge win for folks at NASA who hope to rely more extensively on that contracting style to help accomplish the space agency's goals.

EA Call - Battlefield 6 is in the works Internal play testing going well, huge game scale, hints lead to rumors around modes with 120 players. StarWars Squadrons isn’t getting anything new just yet but job postings lead people to believe big changes are in the works, Apex launched their season 7 and it’s been a bit of a hit and miss depending on how you play the game. Battlepass has already come under fire as they tweak it within the first week of the season launch. I mean in the end I can’t play enough to unlock the shit anyhow so...it is what it is.

System storage - COD Cold War will be 150GB on PC down from the previously listed 250GB with all modes enabled, console will be 130BG with all modes as well...don’t you worry it’ll balloon to the 250+ as soon as possible. PS5 usable space is 667gigs compared to the SeriesX 802gigs. Current games on your PS4 can stay on an external...but the performance of the system is found on the internal drive. So far there aren’t any “approved” NVME SSD drives but price out a high end NVME drive from a solid name brand and I’d bet that will be on your approved drive list...not from a monetary standpoint but from a quality/reliability one.

AMD - Benchmarks for the new 5000 series CPUs have come out, and their everything we hoped for friends! AMD is beating Intel right now across the board, all price points are accounted for, all performance metrics are accounted for here...this is it friends!

PS5/Series X - Reviews have hit and they’re pretty promising. I want to touch on one thing first, SSDs aren’t anything new...I’ve had an SSD in my PS4 Pro for like two years and I’ve used the old HDD as an external, not to mention all manner of SSDs have been available for PCs for a very long time. That being said  don’t let the marketing fool you here it’s not JUST the SSD upgrade that gives the performance jump for these new consoles it’s the software, it’s the TYPE of SSD and it’s the optimization from the development team, all of that combined is the real hero here, not just some piece of hardware.

Polstar 2 - Chinese company Geely bought the Polstar brand from Volvo (used to be their performance arm) 5 passenger fastback, $60K base price but we’re talking about $70K with good options, 200 mile range, AWD, comfortable, 0-60 4.5 seconds. In the end you can go faster and farther for cheaper with the Model 3 Performance...but it has its own build quality issues.

India Shut down PUBG Mobile - Security concerns related to China, 10 cent holds publishing rights. First deaths in border disputes, 33Million registered players.

TearDown - Voxel physics based game jumped to the Steam best sellers list. Open raty tracing and just a ton of fun!

Anthem - Bioware is still working on Anthem, there is hope!

EA Faces fine - $583K every week in the Netherlands for game packs (loot boxes) in FiFa ultimate team

Apex legends - We’re getting a new character (Horizon), a new map (olympus), and a new vehicle!?!? Club system, skins, and plenty of other things

Playstation Plus Collection - 20 games at launch for PS+ members, no additional cost, some first party games and some third party as well. MKBHD - PS5 controller might be the next best thing in next generation gaming. It’s built differently, it’s beefy, “feels” better. New haptics really do feel more accurate - impact in the game feels different, the new triggers really do make a difference - resistance with different materials (Dave2D) motors use a worm gear design and I can vouch for the durability on that.

AMD GPU Event - AMD RX6000 series +50% in performance per watt with RDNA2, 26.8 BILLION transistors. Direct storage API, AMD SMart Access Memory, full access to GPU memory/cpu memory. Full support DX12U

6900XT - $999 vs RTX 3090 $1500

6800XT - $699 vs RTX 3080 $700

6800 - $579 vs RTX 3070 $500

Why I was gone - Went on a little adventure in the hills of TN near Oliver Springs, west of Knoxville, to a place called Windrock Offroad park. Put some new dents in the Jeep, made some amazing memories with my brother, and came back with some perspective. I run a 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. Being a Rubicon model it has a 4:1 ratio in the low range of the transfer case, a 4.10:1 gear ratio in the axles, factory rock sliders, and locking differentials. I’ve added a lift, tires, front and rear ARB bumpers, a winch, and some odds and ends. Basically this Jeep can go many places and conquer many obstacles with little effort, it’s an amazing starting point for anyone looking to get their family out exploring the country. That being said...it is being replaced, for the type of offroading I do and the style of driving I maintain the JKU just isn’t the platform for me.

GMC Hummer EV - If you haven’t looked it’s amazing, I mean it’s got a $115K price tag so...lol

350 mile range, 1000 hp 11,500 trq, 0-60 in 3sec, modular roof panels that store in the frunk, air ride adjustable suspension able to lift the truck 6 inches. Very interesting interior, lots of rugged choices but still very high end. I’d take one if a six figure truck was attainable for me.

Quibi - Is/Was a mobile first streaming platform. Short form content with “star studded casts” all meant to be absorbed on your phone. Bad timing, bad marketing, bad content...at this point no one can really say what doomed them but...almost as soon as they launched their apps...they shut that shit down a day later!

ShadowBan - This comes from a massive Twitch purge for copyright claims regarding music. Thousands of creators got a DMCA email, had videos removed due to these copyright claims. No report of the claimant, the track, or way to counterclaim. All while “soundtrack” (amazon’s royalty free music service) was launched the day before...Amazon isn’t taking the hit for this...so where is the proof to legally fight the battle for the content creator.

Alpha Gamer - Ryan (sound engineer), record labels want to count these large streamers as one 50K listen per song. So in the end each “play” will get devalued over time killing any indie creators producing at this point.

Creative director at Google Stadia, Alex Hutchison stepped on a landmine that blew up in his face. Dude...go back to school and learn about marketing 101…"Streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they used music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well," he wrote. "It's all gone as soon as publishers decide to enforce it.”

Streaming is and the only way things move forward when it comes to modern content. YT’s ID system is one of the most powerful DMCA tools and developers/publishers don’t use it! It’s an understood agreement at this point that the relationship between Content Creators and Developers/Publishers is symbiotic, one directly benefits the other! Look at “Among Us” the game was destined for failure to the point it was going to be shut down in favor for a second game...now it’s one of the most popular games being streamed in late 2020...freakin AOC teamed up to play.

Xbox Lower Price HW - Phil Spencer - “You could imagine us even having something that we just included in the Game Pass subscription that gave you an ability to stream xCloud games to your television and buying the controller.” basically shots fired at Stadia, all hypothetical right now but you can see Microsoft doubling down on the subscription model.

CDPR - “Crunch” drama is BS...it is what it is people, this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. Working six days a week towards the end of a project is pretty standard. How about working class folks that deliver your packages, that make your car parts, that fix your roads...come on. If you’ve never worked a Saturday week over week for a while...well good for you...I have, many folks have. It’s about balance, are these people being paid properly, are they being given extra time off, are they earning bonuses and profit share for their time, from all resources I’ve heard yes they are (CDPR shares 10% profits and they’re on track for 500Million possibly getting each dev up to $50K in bonus). More over the latest reports are saying that they team was polled and the majority came back saying they’d rather put in the extra time over delaying the game again.

Xbox SeriesX vs One X - The speed of the cold start and resume feature is bonkers fast, faster than almost any PC is capable of right now.  STORAGE will be a problem, like I’ve mentioned in past Podcasts even more so for the SeriesS

PS4 Games that won’t work - The 10 titles that won’t make the cut: DWVR, Afro Samurai 2 Revenge of Kuma Volume One, TT Isle of Man - Ride on the Edge 2, Just Deal With It!, Shadow Complex Remastered, Robinson: The Journey, We Sing, Hitman Go: Definitive Edition, Shadwen and Joe's Diner.

AMD Event -  Ryzen first came to market 2017 - 

Ryzen 4000 series in laptops hence the 5000 series name for the new series of desktop processors

Zen3 - Increases overall performance, and power efficiency. Now will LEAD in single threaded gaming performance. It is a “BEAST” in performance. Zen3 will have higher max boost, significant IPC uplift, lower latency.

Bringing all cores to a unified 8 core/cache complex, all cores can access the 32mb of cache. %19 IPC uplift. %24 performance per watt compared to Zen2 which was %20 higher than Zen1.

Zen 4 is in design at 5nm

Ryzen 5000 CPU - 5900X 12 core 24 threads, 4.8 boost clock, 105 tdp. %26 average performance increase in gaming from 3900xt to 5900x. 631 Cinebench score, first desktop process to break 600.

Big boy - 5950x $799 16 core 32 threads, big performance in workload and gaming. 5950x up to %59 in rendering.

Tampa has it’s first driverless shuttle - It uses a virtual rail system, so it rides a specific router like a trolley would. It’s 10x faster than a human drive when considering reaction times. If it needed to be manually controlled, it’s just an Xbox controller. The pilot program will last a year with the option to extend.

Tiny computers, 3D audio confusion, Sony moving on and more in this weeks podcast

Nvidia Jetson Nano - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-jetson-nano-2gb-launched - Nvidia Jetson Nano a Raspberry pi competitor that handles Ai tasks better. Basically anything real world when it comes to image recognition the Jetson Nano does it better.

Sony Pulse 3D headset - https://wccftech.com/dolby-atmos-can-also-support-hundreds-of-objects-like-ps5s-tempest-says-dolby/ - There is no information yet that confirms a third party use case for Sony's Tempest audio but it should work on any headset even your TV speakers.

Some company named “Google” had an Event - New nest speakers, new phones, google TV with remote. Pixel 5 will be made of aluminum with a gorilla glass 6 back cover. New stuff at the Google Store - https://store.google.com/US/?hl=en-US&utm_campaign=GS200146&utm_source=promo&utm_medium=email_crm&utm_content=110364047&utm_term=herocta

Google TV - https://www.engadget.com/new-chromecast-2020-google-tv-hands-on-assistant-remote-control-183038500.html

Sony Backwards Compatibility doesn’t exist  - Basically we don’t have any at this point...they haven’t even confirmed all of the PS4 titles for PS5 yet. https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/ps5-playstation-5-ps4-backward-compatibility-games/

Wide body DeLorean - This thing is amazing, has CyberPunk written all over it! https://youtu.be/-JR499ukLNM 

Article about it's build up, sorry...it's in German - https://www.tuningblog.eu/kategorien/autos-von-a-z/delorean-dmc-12-widebody-296487/

Headlines

Rtx 3080 stability issues - the types of capacitors used in the PCB (circuit board) under the GPU die are acting up, some caps are “cheaper” than others causing some issues when overclocking/boosting, however this is not causing the cards to be unusable it’s an issue with the “boost” frequency alone.

Xbox Nov 10 - PS5 Nov 12 xbox/ps5 pre-orders could be late, orders that have happened in the last week or so are slated to arrive a couple weeks later - expand

Sony copies Xbox - If you go by the job listings and industry rumors Sony is building a team to mimic the Xbox ecosystem, game-pass, and game streaming. Basically there is some supported speculation in the gaming community about Sony’s plans moving forward, devs, managers, project leads, job postings from different studios all support a plan from Sony to build a competitor to Xbox GamesPass.

Xbox one X sales on Amazon - Sales rank went up %747! If you’re a gamer and you ordered the wrong console...WTH?!?!...lol. If you’re a parent and you ordered the wrong console...shame on you! hell even the One S is out of stock now too...lol

Console pre order fails, GTX 3080 benchmarks, who won the high end console wars? All that and more in this episode of the GeekyTechyCool cast. Thanks for stopping in, don't forget to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube. GeekyTechyCool across the board :-)

Console leaks, GPU upsets, and I picked the wrong time to build a PC! 

All that and more in this episode of the GeekyTechyCoolCast, new episodes every week dropping on Mondays.