Grand Theft Auto V Legacy News

GTA 5 gets an enhanced photorealism makeover - and it looks stunning

Grand Theft Auto 5 may be close to eight years old, but that doesn't mean it can't receive a glow-up or two. A group of researchers at Intel Labs used the classic PC game as part of their paper discussing enhancing photorealism. There's a lot of jargon to get to grips with, but the short story is that what they've done with the game looks incredible.

The team explains that the project's point is to enhance photorealism enhancement, which essentially means they're making something even more realistic than before - in this case, GTA 5. Intel Labs explains that its method modifies images from the game to look more natural. Each image is enhanced "by a convolutional network that leverages intermediate representations produced by conventional rendering pipelines".

Intel Labs further explains that the model it used for the presentation was trained to translate GTA 5's images to the Cityscapes data set, which mainly comprises recordings of German cities captured through an automotive camera.

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GTA roleplayers are recreating WoW's Burning Crusade raid

Grand Theft Auto roleplayers are teaming up to hold an event in Los Santos that's inspired by World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade raid. The event is being held on GTA RP's No Pixel server, though we don't have many details past that (thanks, Wowhead).

One of the roleplayers responsible for setting this up is Burn. The content creator has brought a few familiar faces to Los Santos, though this is the first time I've seen him try to reconstruct an event from another game. Burn has previously roleplayed as Gordon Ramsey and more recently caught our attention with his take on Johnny Silverhand. Not only does he impersonate the cyberpunk rocker, but he also jitters and glitches out while talking to people. He'll even strike a t-pose when chatting to others - as you would.

If you're new to the world of No Pixel, it's a server run on a third-party multiplayer system called FiveM. It's not technically GTA Online, so players can tweak it to add new modes and features. We recently spoke to a group of modders who are completing construction on the Mile High Club and turning it into full-blown DLC.

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GTA Online's weekly update doubles rewards on Mobile Operations missions

GTA Online players are mulling around Los Santos to see what we're getting as part of the crime game's weekly update. Rockstar Games posts its official rundown later in the day, but the reset has already happened, so players dive in anyway - why wait, you know?

If you're looking for more ways to make money this week, you'll want to do the Motor Wars adversary mode and the Mobile Operations missions. The first one is a last man standing-type mode where up to four teams duke it out on a map with many heavily armoured vehicles. The mode is paying out triple the usual reward, so you may fancy grabbing some friends and giving it a whirl.

Mobile Operations, meanwhile, came to the game as part of the Gunrunning update. The missions vary and are typically done by two to four players. You're getting double the rewards for your trouble. According to Rockstar tipster Tez2, Gunrunning research will move three times faster while bunker supplies will be 50% off, making all of this a tad easier. The MOC command centre is also 50% off, so you won't have to break the bank to buy it if you don't already have it.

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GTA Online's weekly update doubles rewards on hauling Bunker stock

One of the best ways to rack up some dosh in GTA Online is getting the spotlight in this week's update. Rockstar's official rundown won't be published until later on today, but the update is live so the busy, online citizens of Los Santos are poking around to see what's new and worth going after.

One of the features to immediately catch our eye is double rewards on Bunker sale missions. Bunkers were initially introduced in the Gunrunning update and allow you to do assignments that involve creating stock from gathered supplies and exporting it to buyers. It's an excellent way to make some money, though you should keep a weather eye out for griefers because many of these missions play out in the open world. It's a good week to get into supply running for bunkers if you haven't already, as you can buy a one and renovate it with a 50% discount.

If you're feeling a tad more combative, you can find triple the usual rewards on the Motor Wars adversary mode and double on the Missile Base, Bunker, and Diamond adversary modes.

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GTA 5 mod FiveM is more popular than GTA Online on Steam

GTA RP client FiveM continues to go from strength to strength. The modders behind it took to Twitter (below) to reveal that the mod hit a peak of 250,000 concurrent players over the weekend. If you're wondering how that compares to Grand Theft Auto V, which includes GTA Online - Rockstar's crime game peaked at 124k players over the past 24 hours and around 88k over the weekend on Steam, according to SteamDB (thanks, Full Throttle).

One of the main drivers behind FiveM's success is highly likely to be GTA RP. Since popular server NoPixel launched its 3.0 update, Twitch streamers such as xQc, Summit1G, and SodaPoppin have given the scene more exposure by doing roleplay on stream. GTA 5 even managed to top the Twitch directory on the back of NoPixel's new update.

GTA RP makes for good viewing due to the kind of stories it produces. The rules are strict, so if you gun another player down their character will cease to exist and you'll be held accountable by a police officer who is also being roleplayed by someone else. One streamer even went on to take a break as holding down too many jobs in GTA RP became too much like having a real-life one. It still gets silly, though - one player took to roleplaying as Johnny Silverhand, glitches and all.

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