Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

Welcome to the Monday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has launched its Spring Sale, with over 4000 titles on sale, as well as new Deals of the Day, a Giveaway and some bundles. The sale will last until April 3rd, and here are today's deals:

• Let's start with the important pice: the GIVEAWAY is Lorelai, available during the next 70 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/lorelai
• These are the 9 Deals of the Day, that will last 46 hours:
  • IMMORTALITY is 25% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/immortality
  • Hellish Quart, still in development, gets a 30% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/hellish_quart
  • Fabled Lands is 44% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/fabled_lands
  • The Falcon Collection (4 games) gets its price cut in half: https://www.gog.com/en/game/falcon_collection
  • Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases gets a 60% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/agatha_christie_hercule_poirot_the_first_cases
  • The always present in every new sale GOG Kinky Bundle is 66% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/gog_kinky_bundle
  • Port Royale 4 - Extended Edition sports a 70% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/port_royale_4_extended_edition
  • The Metro Franchise Bundle (3 games + 2 DLCs) is going to be 77% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/metro_franchise_bundle
  • And another usual, the GOG Adventure&Puzzle Bundle, gets a 92% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/gog_adventurepuzzle_bundle
• There is a Serious Sam BYOB where, if you buy or own 5 games, you'll get a bigger discount: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_spring_sale_serious_sam_byob
• If you want to learn more about the sale, check this: https://www.gog.com/en/news/spring_sale_is_here_with_over_4000_deals_up_to_90_giveaway_curated_collections_byob_gog_bundles_new_releases_and_more

The Humble Store has two sales to mention:

• The VR Sale will bring up to 90% discounts during the next 4 days. All the keys are for Steam, except for one that's also available for GOG: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/virtual-reality-sale/
• The Ubisoft Publisher Sale (that I'm not sure if it's new or not), features up to 85% discounts during 11 days. While the majority of the keys are for UbiConnect, there are also 3 for Steam and another 3 for GOG: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/ubisoft-publisher-sale/

And Fanatical's Spring Sale has entered the Encore stage, which means that it will end soon. Meanwhile, there are four new 24 hour Flash Deals:

• The first one is Hi-Fi RUSH, 23% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/hi-fi-rush
• The second one is RimWorld, with a 30% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/rimworld
• God of War is the third one, with a 50% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/god-of-war
• And the last one is Hard West 2, 57% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/hard-west-2

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Epic Games adds new PSO precaching mechanism to Unreal Engine 5.1 to reduce shader compilation stutters
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/epic-games-adds-new-pso-precaching-mechanism-to-unreal-engine-5-1-to-reduce-shader-compilation-stutters/
Epic Games has added a new PSO precaching mechanism to Unreal Engine 5.1 to improve PSO hitching in DX12 titles. This new mechanism will attempt to reduce the shader compilation stutters in future DX12 games (provided these games support this new mechanism).
Going into more details, the new PSO precaching mechanism now skips drawing objects if their PSOs aren’t ready yet. The system aims to have the PSO ready in time for drawing, but it will never be able to guarantee this. When it’s late, it is now possible to skip drawing the object instead of waiting for the compilation to finish. This will ultimately reduce shader compilation stutters.
>> Let's hope it works!

Steam may get a system to let players take 'game notes'
https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-may-get-a-system-to-let-players-take-game-notes/
"Valve is working on a 'game notes' system," says SteamDB creator and noted Steam dataminer Pavel Djundik, "which will be available in the Steam library, and on the web." While "game notes" is vague enough to mean plenty of different things, the consensus expectation is a way of attaching private notes to games to keep track of things while you're playing, without having to alt-tab away or write them down on paper.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project Ultra Quality Version Released
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/cyberpunk-2077-hd-reworked-project-ultra-quality-version-released/
Earlier this week, we informed you about the release of the Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project. And a couple of days ago, modder ‘Halk Hogan’ released an Ultra Quality version of it.
Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project aims to improve the game’s graphics by reworking game assets to better quality preserving original art style. This is a must-have mod as it comes from the man behind the amazing The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project. Cyberpunk 2077 HD Reworked Project Ultra Quality contains the highest quality textures and gives the best visual experience. The modder recommends this version for 2K/4K displays. However, this version can increase VRAM usage. Halk Hogan states that the game can use up to 800MB more VRAM.

Battlefield 1942 gets an 11GB HD Graphics Overhaul Remaster Mod
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/battlefield-1942-gets-a-11gb-hd-graphics-overhaul-remaster-mod/
Modder ‘ScureHD’ has released a brand new version of the Graphics Overhaul Remaster Mod for Battlefield 1942. This new version is around 11GB in size, and will significantly improve the graphics of this classic BF game.
Going into more details, this graphics overhaul mod contains texture updates (including terrain, skybox, environment, vegetation, vehicle and weapon textures) up to 4096×4096 resolution. There are also other tweaks like increased in-engine specular lights and environmental reflections. Not only that, but the mod increases the game’s render distance and LOD quality.
>> There's a short before and after comparison video.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Mod adds support for DLSS Ultra Quality & DLAA
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/red-dead-redemption-2-mod-adds-support-for-dlss-ultra-quality-dlaa/
Modder ‘stoker25’ has released a version of DLSSTweaks for Red Dead Redemption 2 that adds support for DLSS 2 Ultra Quality and DLAA.
For those unaware, DLSSTweaks is a wrapper DLL that can force DLAA onto DLSS-supported titles. For Red Dead Redemption 2, you can use an updated DLSS DLL by setting the OverrideDlssDll setting to the path of an nvngx_dlss.dll outside of the game folder, so that RGL won’t be able to overwrite the DLSS you’ve chosen.
>> There's no video nor screenshots.

Resident Evil 4 Remake Mods remove yellow paint & aiming zoom
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/resident-evil-4-remake-mods-remove-yellow-crate-paint-aiming-zoom/
A lot of cool mods for Resident Evil 4 Remake have already surfaced online. And instead of sharing numerous character swap mods, we’ve decided to share two mods that can significantly improve RE4Remake’s gameplay.
The first mod removes the yellow paint from the game’s destructible objects. We know that some gamers complained about the yellow paint. So, if you were one of them, this mod is for you. By using it, you can make the game’s world a little bit more believable.
The second mod removes the aiming zoom-in that Capcom has implemented. By using this mod, the camera will remain the same whenever you aim. Again, this is something that some players complained about (as the zoom-in can disorientate you).
>> The article has one video, but it's from a character swap mod that turns Leon into John Wick, also included in the article.

Dark Souls 3 gets an unofficial Easy Mode
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/dark-souls-3-gets-an-unofficial-easy-mode/
Modder ‘Zethras’ has released a new mod for Dark Souls 3 that brings to it an unofficial Easy Mode. Now what’s cool about this mod is that it’s not a trainer that makes you an invincible God. Instead, it cleverly makes some adjustments in order to make the whole experience a bit easier.
Going into more details, Easy Souls III features three custom difficulties. These are: Easy, VeryEasy and UltraEasy.
Easy Mode basically increases the amount of souls you gain by 25%. It also lowers the damage you take by 25%, and increases the damage you make to enemies by 25%. In VeryEasy Mode, the percentages are at 50%, and in UltraEasy, the percentages are at 75%.
>> There's a video in the article, but it has nothing to do with this mod.

Classic Deus Ex will get an HD Remaster treatment in Unreal Engine 5
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/classic-deus-ex-will-get-an-hd-remaster-treatment-in-unreal-engine-5/
The creator of the DXU24 project, a project that aims to bring the classic Deus Ex game to Unreal Engine 5, has shared a new dev video. This development video showcases some of the improvements that its latest WIP version features. It also offers a few comparison scenes between the original Unreal Engine 1 and the remastered Unreal Engine 5 versions.
DXU24 is an on-going project, aiming to bring the classic version of Deus Ex to the latest version of Unreal Engine. Furthermore, it will support VR, letting you experience this classic FPS in VR.
>> There's an almost 5 minutes video of the mod.

This fixed-camera survival horror mod is like a Half-Life and Resident Evil teleporter accident
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-fixed-camera-survival-horror-mod-is-like-a-half-life-and-resident-evil-teleporter-accident/
On March 9, modder SellFace released Lost and Damned, a single-player mod for Half-Life 2's venerable Source engine. It's a cheeky, fun homage to Resident Evil that jumbles the two games up in a way that gave me whiplash (in a good way), and maybe the most surprising thing here is SellFace's pitch-perfect fixed camera gameplay.
>> There's a 2 minutes long release trailer of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition Update 1.1 released, aims to improve performance, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-outer-worlds-spacers-choice-edition-update-1-1-released-aims-to-improve-performance-full-patch-notes/
Private Division has released the first update for The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition which aims to improve its performance. Furthermore, this patch will reduce the shader compilation stutters that PC gamers have been experiencing.

Diablo 4 Open Beta suffers from long login queues that can go up to two hours
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/diablo-4-open-beta-suffers-from-long-login-queues-that-can-go-up-to-two-hours/
A few hours ago, Blizzard launched the Early Access phase of Diablo 4’s Open Beta. In this Eary Access phase, those that have pre-ordered the game can play its Open Beta. However, most of you won’t be able to do so as there are currently loooooooong login queues.
>> And no one was surprised.

First gameplay trailer for the fantasy action RPG, Atlas Fallen
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/first-gameplay-trailer-for-the-fantasy-action-rpg-atlas-fallen/
Focus Entertainment has released the first gameplay trailer for its upcoming fantasy action RPG, Atlas Fallen. This trailer is relatively short, so don’t expect much from it. Still, it does pack some combat sequences, giving us a glimpse at its combat mechanics and enemies.

Arkane’s Redfall will support Ray Tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 3
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/arkanes-redfall-will-support-ray-tracing-and-nvidia-dlss-3/
NVIDIA has revealed that Arkane’s open-world, single-player and co-op FPS, Redfall, will support Ray Tracing and DLSS 3. However, these Ray Tracing effects won’t be available on launch day. Instead, Arkane will add them via a post-launch update.

Valheim Patch 0.214.300 released and here are all of its changes & fixes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/valheim-patch-0-214-300-released-and-here-are-all-of-its-changes-fixes/
Iron Gate has released a brand new update for Valheim. According to the release notes, Patch 0.214.300 comes with performance and various bug fixes. Furthermore, it adds Swap Triggers controller option.

Resident Evil 4 Remake gets an anime commercial from Nippon Animation
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/resident-evil-4-remake-gets-an-anime-commercial-from-nippon-animation/
Nippon Animation and Capcom have released a new, short but sweet, anime commercial for Resident Evil 4 Remake. And, since I’m a big fan of anime, I had to share it with you.