Morgan McGuire, one of Nvidia’s top researchers, took to Twitter earlier this week to predict that consumers can expect to see the first must-have game that requires ray tracing by the year 2023. The tweet also included a link to publicly available presentation slides by other Nvidia scientists for this year’s Siggraph computer graphics conference. Most tantalizingly, the tweet featured an image of a single from McGuire’s own presentation, “From Raster to Rays in Games,” included among those of his Nvidia colleagues on the linked Siggraph page.
In essence, ray tracing is a graphics rendering technique that more realistically displays lighting effects by drawing rays between light sources and the “camera.” This approach is much more computationally intensive, though, which is why it is really only feasible with optimized hardware at the moment.
With an exhilarating E3 conference and the launch of Nvidia’s RTX Super GPUs just behind us, now is the perfect time for gaming hardware players like Nvidia to look to the future. Nvidia has an added incentive to muse on the impending innovations in gaming technology, as the company is trying to lead the industry through an awkward transitional period and has suffered its share of reverses in the process. In particular, while Nvidia tried to drum up excitement for a rendering technique that currently has little support from game developers by unveiling its RTX Super line of graphics cards (and offering mouth-watering game bundles to boot), AMD was able to dupe them into releasing the RTX Supers at an inflated price point to compete with its Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT, neither of which include ray tracing optimization.
In theory, Nvidia would be wise to play the long game and try to establish itself with an early lead over its competitors on offering ray tracing technology. In practice, however, it is possible to execute a play to cement dominance over a new format too early. AMD’s reluctance to chart a coherent long-term ray tracing strategy may be a sign that Nvidia has initiated just such a premature gambit, especially considering how ruthless and calculated AMD has been as of late — if AMD isn’t concerned about ray tracing, maybe Nvidia is getting ahead of itself.
Then again, in the methodical march toward its forthcoming Xe GPUs, Intel has signaled that it will include ray tracing from the beginning. If a cautious and meticulous company like Intel is banking on ray tracing, Nvidia may be right to set itself up as a gaming technology leader.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.