Yesterday saw the release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, a remaster which used AI to upscale many of the original game's textures so they look better at 4K.
That's nothing compared to what Intel are working on, however. In a video called "Enhancing Photorealism Enhancement," embedded below, Intel show Grand Theft Auto 5 after it has been run through a neural net to make the streets of Los Santos look more photorealistic. It works.
GTA Online's weekly update has been and gone, but we're still awaiting the official rundown from Rockstar Games, which should be on the Newswire later on. Rather than wait, though, heaps of players are dipping into Los Santos to see what's new for themselves.
This week we're getting triple rewards on Target Assault races. If you haven't tried them out before, they offer a cooperative style of racing that tasks one player with driving the car and the other with hitting, you guessed it, targets. If you fancy something in free mode, you can get double the usual rewards on Business Battles. These missions task you with stealing different types of cargo to use at a nightclub warehouse. These events are triggered every 15 minutes, though GTA Online sessions need at least three players in them for them to start. You're also getting 50% off all offices and renovations, so it may be a good time to buy in if you haven't already.
Some other bonuses are carrying over, too. We've got the Motor Wars adversary mode from last week that's still paying out triple the usual rewards. That one is a last man standing-type mode where up to four teams duke it out in armoured vehicles.
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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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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 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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