I thought opening the impossible door in Mario 64 was the coolest thing that’d happened to the Nintendo 64 in years, but Mr. Wiseguy’s just-released N64 Recompiled blows me away. It’s a tool that theoretically lets you turn any N64 game into a native PC port, the better to play and preserve N64 games — and to showcase its abilities, you can already download Windows and Linux-native apps for The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask that seem to run incredibly well. It almost seems too good to be true: I just double-clicked an EXE file on my Windows laptop, told the app where to find a Majora’s Mask ROM file, and was immediately playing a copy of the game that felt incredibly responsive to my every press on a 165Hz variable refresh rate screen,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Here’s the situation: you’re typing a report for work, and you suddenly have to write the phrase “Jones née Berkowitz.” Or you are adding a phrase in Spanish and need to use the word “años.” How do you add the special characters to the letters? Special characters (also known as diacritical marks) may be more common in certain languages, but there are plenty of circumstances in which English speakers may need to use them. But because they are so rare in English, native English speakers may not have learned how to add those marks to documents, emails, or other writings. It’s not difficult to add them to your Windows document, although it’s not quite as smooth an operation as on a Mac, where all you have to do is hold the appropriate key... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Ghost of Tsushima Steam, Epic, and Green Man Gaming are reportedly canceling and refunding preorders of the PC port of Ghost of Tsushima for buyers who live in over 170 countries without PlayStation Network access, reports Eurogamer. That’s despite the fact that arguably the most important part of the game is still playable without PlayStation Network account linking. The news comes after Valve abruptly delisted the game in those countries yesterday. Ghost of Tsushima only requires PSN account linking for its Legends multiplayer mode, a requirement the single player campaign is exempt from, the game’s developer went out of its way to say in a recent post. Steam, Green Man Gaming, and Epic Games Store each had disclaimers noting the same thing. In theory,... Continue reading…

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上周五，我在一场NVIDIA的媒体分享会上，看到了几位拥有最新“AI大脑”的NPC。它们来自基于NVIDIA ACE技术制作的一个Demo，能实时识别玩家说出的话，然后让NPC用对应的嘴型、表情和动作随机应变地给出反应。在之前NVIDIA官方展示过的一个演示Demo里，我们已经看到过在当时足以称得上惊艳的效果。可如果说上一版Demo是让人看到了这项技术应用到游戏中的可能性，那这一版NVIDIA ACE Demo就完全可以看作一个完整的迷你游戏了。此前的“赛博拉面店”Demo这次NVIDIA与Inworld AI合作开发的全新技术Demo中，玩家将扮演一名私家侦探。在一个高档酒店的大堂里，他不仅能通过对话了解NPC和世界设定，而且还带着一个主线任务——打探一名目标人物的房间号。和此前只能进行对话和简单移动的拉面店Demo不同，这次带着调查任务的玩家，可以在更大的场景里自由移动，调查、翻看大堂内的物品，从中获取线索或是直接拿走。这些功能都让Demo趋近于一个完整的游戏。作为一个ACE的技术演示Demo，想要完成任务自然绕不开与几位AI NPC的对话。大堂里的三名NPC有着不同的性格和做事方式：亚裔门童一张嘴就是美国街头风格，前台服务员主打一个一切按规矩办事，休息区忙着做PPT的公司高管则对陌生人充满了戒心。玩家可以和几位NPC聊任意话题，不管是和亚裔门童聊聊他的种族背景，还是和高管交流交流酒文化，他们每次都会给出不重样的回答。这些NPC的对话或行动看似完全自由，但仍会建立在他们的人设基础上，是基于玩家“打探房间号”的任务进行的设计。如果没能取得高管信任，聊再多红酒他也会以工作为由礼貌地送客；想要冒充FBI套话，但因为拿不到证件也只能被警惕地赶走；但是如果利用一份遗失工牌让他以为你是工作人员，简单几句话就能让他起身赶去询问前台，从而偷听到目标人员的房间号。不用再受预设脚本的约束，只要玩家愿意，就能亲自用嘴说出任何想说的对话，在达成任务触发条件的前提下，可以用任何能想到的方式完成任务——虽然只是个Demo，但以前玩家想象中的未来游戏的样子，确实已经以极高的完成度出现了。这个Demo就有好几种通关方式NVIDIA ACE演示Demo给人的感受，是原来AI已经和我们如此之近了，但事实上，AI早就出现在了我们身边。比如玩家都很熟悉的DLSS 3.5，就是NVIDIA对神经渲染AI使用方式不断迭代后的技术。从2018年DLSS技术的诞生之初，我们就已经是AI的使用者了。这次的演示会上，除了游戏还有更多领域的创作者和艺术家，也都分享了他们在工作中对AI的使用方式。其中RTX AI对他们工作方式的改变程度也让我感到惊讶。建筑设计领域，前沿建筑设计师言萧使用基于Stable Diffusion的建筑图专用模型，在RTX 4090 D GPU和模型插件的加速下，实现了几乎实时的出图效率，几根线条就能快速传达自己的创意。Morph Studio 产品经理、AIGC创作者海辛，将大量美甲图片作为数据集训练出一个AI美甲模型，再将AI程序与UV打印机集成，实现了从设计生成到打印制作的“可穿戴美甲生产线”。Blender艺术家、AI创作者Simon阿文，使用ComfyUI搭建Stable Diffusion工作流，已经实现了对《芭比》《爱乐之城》《低俗小说》等电影进行快速画风转绘，让真人影像获得了像素风、油画和皮影戏等多种风格化视觉效果。在这些分享AI创作经验的人中，大部分创作者仍然没离开以前从事的创作领域，只不过他们的创作形式和创作效率，都因为AI的介入发生了很大的改变。比如前沿建筑设计师言萧靠着自己的AI模型生成效果图，能在和甲方沟通时节约大量精力，大幅提高设计前期的沟通效率。分享会现场，RTX AI的技术专家还向我们直观地展示了如今RTX GPU对SD的加速，在RTX 4090 D台式机上，1秒超过8张的出图速度放在一年前是不可想象的。AI模型平台吐司/Tensor.Art 创始人沈振宇，也向我们分享了他们对所有RTX 40系显卡和AI PC笔记本进行的测试。从数据层面，我们也能看到直观地看到不管是SD1.5还是SDXL，都能在TensorRT在帮助下获得显著的性能提升。SDXL上的测试情况基本相同他们还对比了RTX 4090笔记本电脑GPU和Intel iGPU，二者的性能差距更是巨大到场分享的艺术家中，Simon阿文作为国内较早关注AI发展的艺术家之一，一直以来都在尝试往传统Blender工作流中加入AI的辅助，一次次重新搭建工作流改变设计流程、大幅提高设计效率——这也离不来几年间AI生产力的高速提升。最早用Disco Diffusion跑图时，他一晚上生成十来张图就会惊叹于它的效率。但是现在有了TensorRT的帮助SD出图速度翻了4倍，已经能做到1秒出图。放在几年前，用AI创作视频这种事是他不敢奢望的，也想象不出“秒出图太慢”这种甜蜜的烦恼，完全就是技术版的“农民与皇帝的金锄头”。但在本次分享会上，这种技术的跃升就实时展现在我们面前。和Simon阿文聊到现场的这些Demo时，他提到让他感触最深的，是在场其他创作者对AI的使用方式和垂直领域应用——即便他对这些Demo使用了哪些模型和插件都一清二楚，但依然会惊讶于他们得到的直观效果和实用性。现场还展示了基于开源InstantID模型和工作流的AI证件照等Demo这些创作方式和创作思路上的改变，也是AI在算法和算力的不断提升下，除了生产力革命以外带来的改变，一个早已不是个例的改变。例如在游戏领域，今年的GDC上官方就统计过，到场的三千多位开发者中已经有超过半数的人，开始将生成式AI当做创作工具。这种改变早就随着AI PC和AI工具的普及、算力和模型的进化，悄然发生在各行各业中。距离真正玩上完全拥有“AI大脑”NPC的游戏，或许早已不再像我们想象中那么遥远。

Maybe your home should be dumb! | Illustration by Adrián Astorgano for The Verge It turns out your TV can actually mess up your computer — at least if you’re using a Hisense TV and Windows. Priscilla Snow, a sound designer and composer for games, wrote on Cohost that they’d been having trouble with their PC. The “Display Settings” menu didn’t open. The “Task Manager” started hanging. Then things necessary to making the computer work started to fail. Spelunking in hidden comments on Microsoft forums revealed the problem: Snow’s TV. “I felt like I’d solved a murder.” Basically, the TV had been generating Universal Plug and Play IDs and had, over the course of several years, convinced Snow’s computer that there were essentially an infinite number of devices on their network. Snow’s smart TV, a Hisense 50Q8G, had... Continue reading…

受 Young 的推文启发，其他用户也上传了视频，重点介绍 Windows 11 在执行最简单的任务时如何突然决定放慢爬行速度。

Razer Razer’s latest mobile gaming controller just released today, the Kishi Ultra, is an all-rounder that can switch between multiple devices. The controller has a built-in USB-C port that can work with the iPhone 15 series as well as most Android smartphones (Razer says it’s compatible with the Galaxy 23 series, Pixel 6 and up, the Razer Edge, and “many other Android devices.”) It also seems to work perfectly fine with Galaxy Z Fold 5 and other foldables. The controller can expand to fit your iPad Mini and any 8-inch Android tablets, and you can also tether it to your PC. Razer Razer’s Kishi Ultra can also work on tablets. One interesting feature in the Kishi Ultra is the inclusion of Razer’s Sensa HD immersive... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When I reviewed the Xbox Series X nearly four years ago, I called the console a “next-gen PC.” Not only did the Xbox look like a PC with its boxy, rectangular, tower-like case but it also felt like one thanks to hardware upgrades that allowed it to run games with a variety of PC-like graphical modes. Now, as we approach the next generation of Xbox, it looks like Microsoft is about to close the gap between Xbox and PC even further. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has teased some potentially massive Xbox platform changes in recent weeks. At the same time, leaked internal memos have revealed an increased focus inside Microsoft on Xbox game preservation and forward compatibility. When you put all the breadcrumbs together, it feels like... Continue reading…