Remember that characteristically quirky Asrock motherboard (opens in new tab) that transmogrified from an AMD B650 board into an X670? Well, Asus has got something similar going on with its new ROG X670E-I board. It has a chipset on a PCIe stick.

How so? Well, this all hinges on the fact that AMD’s B650 chipset uses a single chip, known as Promontory 21, whereas the premium X670 chipset houses two Promontory 21 chips daisy-chained together.

The news comes from Taiwanese media outlet UDN (opens in new tab) (via HardwareLUXX (opens in new tab)) and relates specifically to the blank or raw silicon wafers from which chips are etched using advanced lithography processes.

Reportedly, prices of six and eight-inch wafers are down for the first time in three years, while 12-wafers are holding steady but expected also to fall shortly. It’s the larger 12-inch wafers that are used for the most advanced processes at the most important foundry of all, TSMC, and also by Intel.

Higher wafer prices have been part or the reason why chip prices have gone up so dramatically in the last few years. According to industry observers, TSMC’s prices for a finished wafer fully etched with chips has increased from $10,000 per wafer in 2018 for a 7nm wafer to $20,000 per wafer for its latest 3nm tech. In 2016, a 10nm TSMC wafer would have cost you just $6,000.

Of course, blank wafer prices are far from the only factor determining final chip prices. The latest multi-layer production nodes are far more complex and time consuming to process than earlier nodes. And yields are always absolutely critical in dictating individual component prices.

So, despite much lower demand driven by everything from the broader economic downturn, higher interest rates, inflation, the demise of cryptocurrency mining and a raft of further factors, cheaper blank wafers aren’t going to immediately translate into cheaper actual chips.

Moreover, it can’t simply be assumed that the likes of TSMC will pass on lower blank wafer costs to customers like AMD and Nvidia. In which case, there would be no savings for those companies to pass on to long suffering gamers, even if they want to. And it’s highly questionable that they do.

Indeed, as we recently reported (opens in new tab), AMD and other chip producers regularly adjust their chip output to prevent a glut of product and the lower prices that would ensue. The same applies to silicon wafers with UDN reporting that many chip foundries are having their wafer deliveries delayed and lowering their manufacturing volumes.

In the very long run, sustained lower demand will drag prices down. And GPU pricing has come off from its wildest pandemic and crypto-fuelled peak. But the mechanics of wafer pricing are just another insight into why chip prices and therefore the cost of things like graphics cards is likely to fall gently rather than suddenly nosedive.

We’re just going to have to be patient.

The greens came early today—well, most of them did. Towards the end, I had that one dreaded gap left to fill and more potentially winning letters left than I had guesses to use up. Thankfully blind luck brought me to the answer just in time.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Thursday, February 9

Today’s word is the name for the area in a theatre the actors usually perform from, but it can also refer to a specific part of a long process too, amongst other things. Something that’s just begun might be described as being in the opening _____, for example. There are two vowels to find today. 

Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day. 

• A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word. 
• A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
• There may be a repeat letter in the answer.

You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head. 

Today’s Wordle answer

What is the Wordle 600 answer?

Let’s make sure every day’s a winner. The answer to the February 9 (600) Wordle is STAGE.

Previous answers

The last 10 Wordle answers 

Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.

Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:

• February 8: FLAIL
• February 7: APPLE
• February 6: NINTH
• February 5: DANCE
• February 4: UNLIT
• February 3: TASTY
• February 2: SHIRK
• February 1: SCOLD
• January 31: CROSS
• January 30: CRAVE

Learn more about Wordle 

Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.

Getting off to a good start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.

After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 

Roblox is a human co-experience platform.  We want our users to be able to experience the full spectrum of social interactions in our immersive 3D experiences, with communication on Roblox mirroring all the ways we communicate in the real world.  One of the cross-functional teams building this technology on Roblox is the User Group. 

“We believe that expressive and immersive communication is the future,” said Garima Sinha, Senior Director of Product. “We are at that juncture where the technologies that we’ve been working on for years are coming together. When you are in a virtual experience, you can see expressions. Soon, you’ll be able to feel the body language, the vibe of people being in the same room.” 

The User Group’s vision is to enable one billion people to communicate, play, learn, and work together in high-quality immersive 3D experiences. “[Our vision] has stayed pretty consistent over the past three years,” said Philippe Clavel, Senior Director of Engineering. “We want to build a platform that empowers people to connect and engage together.” 

But as Philippe explains, building it in the right way is just as important as getting the technology behind it working. “Roblox is inherently a social product. There’s still so much potential for what it can do. But we also have to make sure that we are building our products in a safe and civil way.” 

Together, Garima and Philippe lead teams within the broader User Group at Roblox that are tackling some of Roblox’s toughest technical challenges to bring this vision to life. To learn more about what they are up to, we spoke with them and two other members of the User Group: Principal Product Manager Effie Goenawan and Engineering Manager Irene Nguyen. 

The Technical Challenges Behind Virtual Communication and Connection

Philippe reminisced on a moment from his Roblox job interview. “During my interview, CEO and Co-Founder Dave Baszucki explained to me that in the 3D world, you can be and interact with anyone. But before you can do that, you must be able to communicate effectively. Our vision is to enable and mimic real-world communication.”

By adding voice communication to our Chat feature, we are getting closer to this vision.  This new functionality allows users 13 and older to communicate using their voice in Roblox experiences. The technology is proximity-based and simulates realistic communication.

The User Group, including cross-functional efforts from the Safety and Engine Groups, has tackled several technical challenges to bring Chat with voice to life – one of the toughest being building the architecture. “Building the technology behind Chat with voice is inherently complex. To make it feel immersive and mirror real-world communication, we enable sound so that it is tied to your avatar’s location within a 3D space. You want others who are near you to hear you – not those far away,” said Philippe.

“On top of that, when we deploy new features, it’s to millions of users across the globe. We made sure to deploy this new service at the edge to guarantee that our voice servers are close to our users. We want you to have a good discussion wherever you are.”

Ensuring that we built this feature with safety and civility in mind is also a critical technical challenge. “Our top priority is making sure that we roll out Chat with voice safely and responsibly. While we’ve already implemented robust safety features (e.g. moderation tools), we are also looking at technology solutions to ensure safety and civility on our platform,” said Effie. 

Culture of Innovation in the User Group

While our company values act as a guide anyone can use to solve our technical challenges, each team brings its own collaborative and creative approach to developing innovative solutions.  Here are some of the ways that the User Group comes together to drive a culture of innovation for Roblox. 

Solving tough technical challenges is what motivates them. 

Finding the right solution to technical challenges is rarely clear or straightforward. Effie encourages her team to leave no stone unturned when trying to find solutions.

When it involves solving for safety and civility, “One easy solution would be to spend lots of time and resources on manual moderation, but we are responsible for making the right decisions for our team and the business. That’s why we are starting to look at ways that we can tackle this problem with the best technology solutions to support our moderation efforts.” One of those technical challenges is moderating the Chat with voice feature.

“We need to be able to detect and take action in real time to ensure the safety of our community,” said Garima. “These are hard technical problems that no one in the industry has solved yet. What makes the culture of our team unique is that we all have the drive to make it happen. We are solving some of the hardest problems in the world. And our people take a lot of pride in solving these hard problems.”

Iteration is what helps them develop great solutions. 

Even when facing blockers, the User Group has kept its eye on the ball. For Irene Nguyen, developing MVPs (Minimum Viable Product) and proofs of concept is part of the process. As an Engineering Manager on the Connections Team within the User Group, Irene supports users’ abilities to connect, experience, and create memories with friends. One technical challenge her team is helping to solve is enabling video capture functionality within the Roblox platform. Her team’s goal is to enable users to quickly and easily share great moments from Roblox with their friends. 

“What are our current limitations in video quality? What does this mean across devices? Performance? We want to build it right and build it for all.” Identifying where to begin can be overwhelming, but maintaining an iterative mindset helps Irene and her team balance priorities and forward momentum. 

“We need to identify our starting point, be clear about our vision, and then lay out the steps needed to build an MVP that will get us there. By following that process, the team is able to see and get really pumped about what’s possible.” She recalls, “some people equate an MVP with a hack or workaround solution. Instead, I think of it as a way for us to prove the viability of whatever we’re working on. Iteration is how we end up with a great solution.” 

Open communication and collaboration enable anyone to share new ideas and problem solve. 

What is the secret to sparking innovation across the team? Philippe thinks that it’s fostering a bottom-up development culture, encouraging open communication, and asking the right questions. 

“You don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people, so they tell you. As a manager, my job is to help our team by asking constructive questions,” said Philippe. “This style has helped our team seek better solutions and achieve results. Asking questions allows our team members to think about things differently. I find that they speak up about their perspectives. And most importantly, they openly share when they disagree.” 

Recently, Philippe’s team debated how they should render spatial audio (the technology powering Chat with voice). “Say that you’re in the experience with your avatar. Should we render the audio as if it is coming to your avatar’s ears or to the game camera? There was a very strong argument for both ways, so we solved for both and voted on what felt best. And, in true Roblox fashion, we also allow developers to customize it and change the default setting.”

The User Group has also started to host internal tech talks to foster communication and collaboration. In Irene’s words, “We take pride in knowledge-sharing across the various teams in the User Group. They [tech talks] are a way that we all stay connected and share what’s happening across our team. Doing this has led us to tackling other big questions.”

These tech talks have had other benefits, especially for junior members. Anyone is able to practice their public speaking skills, show off what they’ve been building, and even get real-time feedback. 

“There can never be too many forums for people to showcase what they’re building,” says Irene. “We’re hoping to expand the tech talks and make them even bigger in 2023.”

Join the Team Helping to Shape the Future of Human Connection and Communication.

The User Group has ambitious plans for 2023. So what are some of the reasons that you’d want to join the team? For Effie, it’s the opportunity to make an impact. “The problem space that you have the potential to impact is huge. Whether it’s technical, machine learning, optimization, user experience, or even policy, we’re leaders in an industry where there is such a greenfield of problems that have never been solved.”

Want to learn more about what the User Group is working on? Tune in to the latest Roblox Tech Talks Podcast to listen to a conversation between Garima and CEO Dave Baszucki on the future of communication on Roblox. 

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Team Behind the Tech is a behind-the-scenes look at how our teams tackle their toughest technical challenges and what it reveals about the culture, people, and values behind our innovative technologies. If these sound like the challenges and opportunities you want to take on, check out our available roles for the User Group and learn more at careers.roblox.com.

Dark and Darker calls itself “unforgiving” and “hardcore” first and foremost and after I immediately died to sword-wielding skeletons in my first few runs before ever having the privilege of being killed by a player, I’m inclined to agree. (The tutorial does note that a lower, “normal” difficulty is not yet in the alpha.) 

In extraction game fashion, you’ll fight and loot AI enemies like skeletons, spiders, and mummies as you explore its two current maps, competing with other players to escape through exfil portals as a circle of “dark swarm” closes in around the dungeon. You can queue up for solos in the Goblin Cave map, take a party of up to three into the Forgotten Castle, or pay a 100 gold ante for the high risk, high loot version of the castle.

As the fighter class, I’ll start most rounds with the default sword, shield, and torch, loot a nearby chest in hopes of some boots or a helmet, and then get on with killing the closest AI baddies. If I’m lucky, I’ll amass a small handful of gold trinkets and miscellaneous weaponry to jam in my inventory Tetris-ed pockets. If I die I lose it all, but if I manage to worm my way through the oppressively narrow corridors, floor spike traps, and other players I have a shot at locating a glowing blue stone on the floor that will open an exit portal. (Be aware, co-op folks; these things admit one person only, not the whole squad, which seems quite stingy for a game best played with pals.) You can also take a red glowing portal to head deeper into the dungeon for further challenges and rewards, but I’ve not gotten that brave yet.

Things get a bit less harrowing in a well-balanced trio of Fighter, Cleric, and Wizard, (or Barbarian, Rogue, or Ranger) but even so, death is only a couple missteps away in Dark and Darker’s classically claustrophobic dungeons, which make me miss the open air of other PvPvE romps.

If I do escape, I immediately sell all my loot in the merchant menu and shove the gold coins in my stash while I take on the next run wearing only what I brought out on my back. This is where Dark and Darker is most similar to Escape From Tarkov; buying incrementally better gear from merchants and working towards permanent class upgrades is a familiar grind. I’m not one to throw around the word “Sisyphean” but the threat of my loot boulder tumbling down the hill seems like a greater threat than even other extraction games. Instead, I strive towards level-gated perk slot upgrades and swapping my active skills for the Fighter and Rogue characters I’m levelling.

The malaise of melee 

Dark and Darker’s first-person melee combat is a bit like Skyrim—slash, step back, slash, block, get hit with an arrow despite blocking, repeat. It means I spend a lot of time doing that W and S waltz with a skeleton while knowing I may stumble backwards into an enemy player (or hell, just a closed door) and have my run cut short. Weapons have a series of automatic combos indicated by your reticle—diagonal right, diagonal left, then a thrust for the sword a Fighter starts with—so it’s above the monotony of yon Tamriel melee, but not as skill-based as Chivalry 2.

That’s the common denominator in my complaints so far. Dark and Darker’s punishing enemy damage, from AI and players, demands a lot more skill than its combat system allows me to exert. This is no Chivalry 2, nor a FromSoftware game. Every fight I’ve been in so far has been clumsy—unwieldy brutes slowly sidestepping while weapons collide with walls, barrels, and sometimes what I was actually aiming at. The fact that there’s no way to fully block an attack (at least with base-level gear) means the first one to land a hit is probably going to win, and so far, that means archers are very powerful. I’ve died often, and though I’m prone to hubris, even I feel the skill ceiling pressing down on the back of my neck.

Dark and Darker’s clunky brawls make me a bit wistful for the FPS games I dislike, in fact. My preferred sword and sorcery genre doesn’t have the same history of competing corporations squeezing yearly online PvP releases out of a popular series. There are few accepted standards for melee combat in the way of commonly understood “good gunfeel.” I want to imagine what Dark & Darker would play like if the likes of Torn Banner, FromSoft, and TaleWorlds had a decade-long arms race over sword combat dominance in the 2010s.

In any case, it’s not fair to heap those expectations at the feet of a studio launching its first game, even one comprised of a “merry band of veteran game developers” as Ironmace (opens in new tab) calls itself. It’s a ways off being a blueprint for the future, but the staggering number of folks jumping in to try it gives me hope that Ironmace will massage Dark and Darker into something genuinely enviable.

Despite the constant death and the slightly stodgy swordplay, I’m going to clock several more evenings of co-op with friends or randoms during Dark and Darker’s alpha (opens in new tab), which will remain open until February 13 as part of Steam Next Fest. Its prior test ran from December 16–26, so I’ll have to hope that another isn’t too far away in the spring.