Because it's not

We might be in for a rude awakening if Ampere is as slow as this slow ass calendar.

NVidia too later on when big Navi and RDNA2 get released

Assuming it isn't shit, I might finally get my wish of buying a "Halo" gpu. I have been slowly going up tiers of GPU in my life.

Started from Intel Integrated GPU > Nvidia 9800 GTX+ > ATI 6870 > Nvidia 970 > Nvidia 1080 > Here's hoping Nvidia 3080 Ti or Titan (depending on how they name it).

Funny, because I think the next time I buy a GPU I'll actually buy one that's a lower class than the one I'm using.

I went, as far as my own builds go, from a mid-high HD 5850 to another mid-high GTX 1070, but next time I'll probably go with a xx60 and equivalent AMD card. I don't mind turning down a few settings nor need constant 60fps to enjoy a game, and most games nowadays are console ports so their min, requirements won't change much over time until a new gen of consoles launches, but by that time I'll be 4 or 5 years so it would be time to upgrade anyway.

So yeah, an RTX 4060 or RX 7600(?) would be perfectly fine for me in a couple of years.

Are you sure they won't just get bored as usual again? I'd be surprised if big Navi can even touch a 2080ti.

I've been saying that to myself since Titans existed but never bought one. I guess this time I'll make it whatever comes first, depending if I finally also have a monitor for it.

If their upcoming Radeon Instinct MI100 (codename Arcturus) is anything to come by, then Ampere will need a big jump to keep up. Even though just clocked at 1.3Ghz, a whooping 128 CU are nothing to sneeze at, especially since this allows the card to run at a TDP of just 200W.

Of course, RDNA-based GPUs will be smaller than this, but just look at the clock speed of the PS5. Get even just up from the 40CU of the 5700XT to 48CU with this clock speed, and the 2080Ti will already be in a world of hurt. Go to 64CU, and Ampere will have some very serious competition.

Don't forget that RDNA2 will have a much higher performance per Watt according to AMD. Something much more powerful than a 2080Ti should be easily achievable if AMD gets the TDP up to 250 or even 300W. After all, the 5700XT has a TBP of 225W, which includes everything else on the board, so the chip itself is probably just somewhere around 180W.

Just because something has high performance per Watt on low clocks, doesn't mean it will scale well with clock and cores. Just look at recent Intel CPUs.

I'll believe that a high end AMD GPU exists when I see it.

If AMD does manage to catch up to Nvidia's 3000 series and have their drivers be competitive, I might switch. But Big Navi will be based on 7nm+ and architectural improvements where as Nvidia's 3000 series will have a pretty significant node shrink and architectural improvements. Not to mention this will be their second generation with ray tracing where as AMD is only getting started.

The Monday news:

SALES & DEALS

PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 is free to own on Steam until May 10th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pac-man-championship-edition-2-is-free-to-own-on-steam-until-may-10th/
Bandai Namco has announced that PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 is available for free on Steam. From today and until May 10th, PC gamers can visit its Steam store page and acquire their free copy. This is a “free to own” offer, meaning that you’ll be able to keep the game yours forever.
>> Here's the link to the Steam page. But that's not the only free game/DLC at Steam:

• The game World Tennis Tour offers for free 3 of its DLCs until December 1st. Check them out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/692030/Tennis_World_Tour/
• And don't forget that later today, Total War: SHOGUN 2 will be free until May 1: https://store.steampowered.com/app/201270/Total_War_SHOGUN_2/

Alien Isolation is available on Steam with a 95% discount for the next 48 hours
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/alien-isolation-is-available-on-steam-with-a-95-discount-for-the-next-48-hours/
Alien: Isolation is considered as one of the best Alien games to date. And today, we are happy to report that SEGA is offering this survival horror game with a 95% discount. This basically means that you can get this amazing Alien game for only 2 US dollars. So yeah, this is an offer you cannot miss.
>> Well, now they're more like 26 hours left. It's a shame I'm not into horror games, but I can still go with the other daily deal, because publisher Handy Games has put its games up to 80% off: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/HandyGames/ .

Humble Bundle has raised $6.5 million for COVID-19 relief
https://www.pcgamer.com/humble-bundle-has-raised-dollar65-million-for-covid-19-relief/
You may remember the Humble Conquer COVID-19 Bundle because it was a great deal, or because somebody dropped a fat $10k on it, but other people are going to remember it for a different reason: It saved lives. Humble has announced that the bundle was a “huge success,” bringing in over $6.5 million US for charity and selling over 200,000 bundles. 100% of the money raised went to charities like Doctors Without Borders, Direct Relief, Partners In Health, and International Rescue Committee. The money will go to delivering protective gear to health workers, providing resources to at-risk populations, and medical care for infected patients.
>> Amazing news! Now there's a new sale in the Humble Store, the Alien Day Sale with up to 95% discounts on... well, I was going to day Alien games but it's all about Isolation and its DLCs. The sale will last for another 26 hours: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/alien-day-sale/

GOG's new weekly sale revolves around war games up to 90% off: https://www.gog.com/promo/20200427_weekly_sale

Fanatical has several new sales:

• The new Star Deal is Moto GP 19, 75% off for the next 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/moto-gp-19
• Everspace is up to 80% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/franchises/everspace
• Frontier has put its games up to 76% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/frontier-developments
• Square Enix also has its games on sale, up to 90% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/square-enix
• And lastly, there's a new bundle with Warhammer: Vermintide with 2 games and 5 DLCs split into 3 tiers: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/warhammer-vermintide-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix Driver 445.98 fixes HDR issues, improves stability in F1 2019 & Overwatch
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nvidia-geforce-hotfix-driver-445-98-fixes-hdr-issues-improves-stability-in-f1-2019-overwatch/
NVIDIA has released a new hotfix driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, the NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix Driver 445.98 fixes some issues that players encounter when HDR was active.
Moreover, this driver improves overall stability in both F1 2019 and Overwatch. For instance, it fixes some random crashes to desktop in F1 2019. Thus, those of you playing these two games should download and install this driver.
>> Available from here.

The Khronos Group has publicly released OpenCL 3.0
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-khronos-group-has-publicly-released-opencl-3-0/
The Khronos Group has publicly released the OpenCL 3.0 Provisional Specifications. OpenCL 3.0 realigns the OpenCL roadmap to enable developer-requested functionality to be broadly deployed by hardware vendors, and it significantly increases deployment flexibility by empowering conformant OpenCL implementations to focus on functionality relevant to their target markets.
OpenCL 3.0 also integrates subgroup functionality into the core specification, ships with a new OpenCL C 3.0 language specification, uses a new unified specification format, and introduces extensions for asynchronous data copies to enable a new class of embedded processors. The provisional OpenCL 3.0 specifications enable the developer community to provide feedback on GitHub before the specifications and conformance tests are finalized.

GOG Galaxy 2.0 now includes your gaming subscriptions
https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-galaxy-20-now-includes-your-gaming-subscriptions/
GOG Galaxy 2.0 is poised to leave beta soon, but in the meantime a new update has arrived that you can download now.
Living up to its goal to be a unified launcher, GOG Galaxy now includes your gaming subscriptions. They're collected by default, too, so once you update the client you should see them appear straight away.
With the likes of Game Pass for PC and Uplay+, a lot of folks' games are now attached to subscription services, and if you're trying to juggle multiple subs, you can now see them all in one place. Download the update and you'll be able to browse and install these games just like you would with the ones you own outright.

MODS/EMULATORS

Nintendo Switch Ryujinx Emulator can now run Yoshi’s Crafted World, Pokemon Sword & Astral Chain
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/nintendo-switch-ryujinx-emulator-can-now-run-yoshis-crafted-world-pokemon-sword-astral-chain/
John GodGames Emus has shared some new videos, showing the Nintendo Switch emulator, Ryujinx, running a couple of games. Thus, you can find watch below Yoshi’s Crafted World, Pokemon Sword, Astral Chain and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate running on the PC via this emulator.
Now as you will see, Yoshi’s Crafted World has major graphical glitches and the performance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is awful. Still, it’s pretty incredible witnessing these two games going in-game via the Nintendo Switch emulator.
On the other hand, Pokemon Sword appears to be in a more playable state. While there are a few graphical glitches, the game appears to be running smoothly. However, we don’t know whether the game is fully playable yet, from start to finish.
Lastly, Astral Chain appears to be running pretty well. Still, there are some annoying stutters (that will be hopefully fixed in a future version). Again, the fact that this Nintendo Switch emulator can run triple-A games is a big deal.

Here is Doom 3 with Reshade Ray Tracing
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-is-doom-3-with-reshade-ray-tracing/
As you may know, there was only one PC game I wanted to see with Reshade Ray Tracing when Pascal Glicher released his amazing mod. That game was, obviously, Doom 3. And today, we can finally take a look at how this Reshade mod can improve this controversial Doom game.
Doom 3 was the first game that introduced Shadow Volumes; a technique used in 3D computer graphics to add shadows to a rendered scene. Alongside Shadow Volumes, id Software implemented a number of “fake” lights in Doom 3. Furthermore, the game lacks any Ambient Occlusion effects. As a result of all these, the Reshade Ray Tracing version is even darker.
Now the good news is that this Reshade Ray Tracing mod adds color/light bleeding and improved Ambient Occlusion effects. In the following video, 314Reactor has compared numerous scenes in which the Reshade Ray Tracing mod improves the game’s visuals.

Doom Eternal Mod restores cut graphics effects, like player shadow, anamorphic lens flares & more
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/doom-eternal-mod-restores-cut-graphics-effects-like-player-shadow-anamorphic-lens-flares-more/
Nikk Mann has released a pretty interesting mod for Doom Eternal. This mod attempts to restore some of graphics effects that id Software has cut from the game. Thus, you can enable player shadow (as well as self-shadowing), anamorphic lens flares and an improved HUD.
Moreover, you can enable a small cloud of dust to kick-up when landing from a jump. You can also disable the in-game blurry anti-aliasing solution so you can use Reshade. That last one is not that necessary in my opinion as Doom Eternal comes with a Sharpening setting.
>> You can download it from Nexus Mods.

Someone is working on a faithful classic Doom Remake in Unreal Engine 4
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/someone-is-working-on-a-faithful-classic-doom-remake-in-unreal-engine-4/
Have you ever wondered what the classic Doom games would look like in a modern-day engine? Well, time to get a glimpse of such a thing. EvilReFlex has shared the following video in which he attempts to recreate the first Doom game in Unreal Engine 4.
Right now, this Doom Remake in Unreal Engine 4 is a proof of concept project. As such, don’t expect much from it in its current state. Now the good news here is that EvilReFlex attempts to retain the game’s original art 2D style, something that most Doom fans will appreciate.

5.4GB HD Texture Pack for Skyrim Special Edition, Skyrim 2020 Version 3.5, available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/5-4gb-hd-texture-pack-for-skyrim-special-edition-skyrim-2020-version-3-5-available-for-download/
Back in January, we informed you about a must-have HD mod for Skyrim Special Edition. And earlier this week, modder ‘Pfuscher’ released a brand new version of his HD Texture Pack for Skyrim Special Edition.
Skyrim 2020 Version 3.5 is 5.4GB in size and overhauls numerous textures. For instance, this pack adds new textures and cubemaps for Goat, Highlandcow, Farmhouse, Markarth and Riften. It also overhauls the textures for Solitude, Tents, Whiterun, Windhelm, Winterhold and more.
>> You can find it at Nexus Mods.

Here's a patch to give Deus Ex: Human Revolution—Director's Cut back its gold filter
https://www.pcgamer.com/heres-a-patch-to-give-deus-ex-human-revolutiondirectors-cut-back-its-gold-filter/
When Deus Ex: Human Revolution first released it had a distinctive gold filter that made everything shine like it was covered in Ferrero Rocher wrappers. It was a divisive feature, with some saying the black-and-gold palette was a valid artistic choice and a distinctive look. Others said it made everything look like it was made of bumblebees.
When the director's cut came out, initially as a WiiU exclusive (a fact I'd forgotten until today), the gold filter had been cut and it remained absent on the PC version. Until now, when a modder known as Silent put in the work to restore it.
(...)
As you can see on his blog about the subject, getting a version of the gold filter working in Deus Ex: Human Revolution—Director's Cut wasn't as simple as flipping a switch marked "make it all shiny". A bunch of changes happened to the lighting between the two versions, and Silent's patch also works at fixing some of those that obviously seem like mistakes.
You can download the patch from Github. If you want to see some side-by-side comparisons, here you go.

GAMING NEWS

Paradise Killer is coming to the PC this Summer and there is a demo to download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/paradise-killer-is-coming-to-the-pc-this-summer-and-there-is-a-demo-to-download/
Fellow Traveller and Kaizen Game Works have announced that their first-person open-world investigation game, Paradise Killer, will release on the PC this Summer. In order to celebrate this announcement, the teams have released a demo that you can download right now.

Microsoft releases new breathtaking screenshots for Microsoft Flight Simulator
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/microsoft-releases-new-breathtaking-screenshots-for-microsoft-flight-simulator/
Microsoft has released a new set of breathtaking screenshots for Microsoft Flight Simulator. These screenshots showcase some of the game’s special graphics effects, like the Bokeh Depth of Field and Volumetric Clouds.