MojoKid writes We can finally stop arguing over which is the superior game console, the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Quite frankly, it’s a pointless debate, and it took a self-taught engineer to put the argument to rest, which he did by combining both game systems into a 22-inch laptop. Meet the “PlayBox, ” a gaming laptop that’s equal parts Xbox One and PS4 rolled into one. The PlayBox wins the argument because it allows you to play games on either system, and when it comes down to it, the ability to play games is all that matters. Built for a “specific customer, ” the owner of this prototype system needn’t worry about exclusives since he now has a system that can play them all, and do it while taking up no more space than a single console. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Engineer Combines Xbox One, PS4 Into Epic ‘PlayBox’ Laptop
Microsoft boss Satya Nadella loves cloud computing , and a new, rumored Microsoft service could be putting all that computing power to better use than every. A project codenamed “Arcadia” (yes, another Halo reference) could soon stream games and apps to Windows devices, phones and tablets and computers alike. Read more… 
MojoKid (1002251) writes “Life is hard when you’re a AAA publisher. Last month, Ubisoft blamed weak console hardware for the troubles it had bringing Assassin’s Creed Unity up to speed, claiming that it could’ve hit 100 FPS but for weak console CPUs. Now, in the wake of the game’s disastrous launch, the company has changed tactics — suddenly, all of this is AMD’s fault. An official company forum post currently reads: “We are aware that the graphics performance of Assassin’s Creed Unity on PC may be adversely affected by certain AMD CPU and GPU configurations. This should not affect the vast majority of PC players, but rest assured that AMD and Ubisoft are continuing to work together closely to resolve the issue, and will provide more information as soon as it is available.” There are multiple problems with this assessment. First, there’s no equivalent Nvidia-centric post on the main forum, and no mention of the fact that if you own an Nvidia card of any vintage but a GTX 970 or 980, you’re going to see less-than ideal performance. According to sources, the problem with Assassin’s Creed Unity is that the game is issuing tens of thousands of draw calls — up to 50, 000 and beyond, in some cases. This is precisely the kind of operation that Mantle and DirectX 12 are designed to handle, but DirectX 11, even 11.2, isn’t capable of efficiently processing that many calls at once. It’s a fundamental limit of the API and it kicks in harshly in ways that adding more CPU cores simply can’t help with. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes The Linux 3.17 kernel was officially released today. Linux 3.17 presents a number of new features that include working open-source AMD Hawaii GPU support, an Xbox One controller driver, free-fall support for Toshiba laptops, numerous ARM updates, and other changes. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
