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DX12 is coming: Ashes of Singularity just hit beta

DirectX12 is something that a lot of PC gamers are very excited about and with good reason. It has the potential to offer massive performance boosts to both Nvidia and AMD GPUs (though more so with the latter), giving developers much lower-level access to hardware for optimizing games, as well as utilizing on-board GPUs thanks to its multi-adapter features.

The problem though is that while Windows 10 and compatible GPUs have been available for some time, no games have yet been released that support the new DirectX API. If you don’t want to wait for a final release though, there is one option you could try.

Ashes of Singularity is the first title to break ground and support the new standard. It’s been available in Early Access for some time, but has now officially hit beta, which means it’s one step closer to a final release, and it’s looking magnificent.

The sci-fi RTS impressed last year when it first debuted, thanks to its masses of on-screen units, which easily outdo every similar game to date in sheer numbers. This has actually meant that the developers at Stardock had to come up with a new concept of ‘meta-units’ to manage the individual units in their squads (as per PCGamer).

This first beta release of the game features a single-player skirmish mode, co-op multiplayer, and ranked multiplayer. To gain access, all you need do is purchase the game on Steam or GoG, though before buying consider that the game is not yet finished and may go through more changes before final release.

If you are platform-agnostic, you may want to consider buying from GoG this time around, as due to Ashes of Singularity’s “In Development,” status, GoG is offering a two-week, no-questions-asked refund period for games of that type.

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
A dangerous new jailbreak for AI chatbots was just discovered
the side of a Microsoft building

Microsoft has released more details about a troubling new generative AI jailbreak technique it has discovered, called "Skeleton Key." Using this prompt injection method, malicious users can effectively bypass a chatbot's safety guardrails, the security features that keeps ChatGPT from going full Taye.

Skeleton Key is an example of a prompt injection or prompt engineering attack. It's a multi-turn strategy designed to essentially convince an AI model to ignore its ingrained safety guardrails, "[causing] the system to violate its operators’ policies, make decisions unduly influenced by a user, or execute malicious instructions," Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, wrote in the announcement.

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