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

[JEMC]

The Tuesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

(Click here for the top 100)

Steam features new deals and weeklong deals:

• The Ukranian Games Festival 2023 brings up to 90% discounts until August, 24th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/UkrainianGames2023
• DANGEN Entertainment's Summer Publishing Sale has up to 90% deals until the 25th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/dangen_publisher_sale_2023
• The Dreamhack Beyond Summer Indie Showcase started a few days ago and will last until the 27th, featuring up to 70% discounts: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40157993-DreamHack/sale/dreamhackbeyondsummerindieshowcase
• Chronicon will be 50% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/375480/Chronicon/
• Vampire Survivors will be 25% off until August, 31st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794680/Vampire_Survivors/
• The Sherlock Holmes Franchise is on sale with up to 80% discounts until the 28th. It's also part of the Ukranian sale, but it will last longer: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/sherlockholmes/
• Craftopia, still in Early Access, will be 40% off until the 4th of September: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307550/Craftopia/
• The Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023 features up to 80% discounts, but most of the games aren't on sale. The length of the deals varies. Some will end in a day while others will last the whole week and more: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/bic2023
• And this is a small selection of the weeklong deals:
  • Okinawa Rush is 10% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/777670/Okinawa_Rush/
  • Island Farmer - Jigsaw Puzzle gets a 30% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1564560/Island_Farmer__Jigsaw_Puzzle/
  • Lost Lands: The Wanderer Collector's Edition, that has a demo, is 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/626640/Lost_Lands_The_Wanderer_Collectors_Edition/
  • Bug Academy gets a 68% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/881040/Bug_Academy/
  • Hinterland is 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/17140/Hinterland/
  • And the last one is HoPiKo, with a 90% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/437390/HoPiKo/

Fanatical's Summer Sale enters its Encore stage, meaning that it will end soon(-ish). That doesn't stop them from launching new Flash Deals, not available yet, a new Sale and a new bundle:

• Bandai Namco puts its games on sale with up to 91% discounts during 9 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/bandai-namco-entertainment
• The BYO Slayer Bundle IX is live, with 16 titles to choose from for your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-slayer-bundle-ix

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 23.8.1
https://videocardz.com/driver/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-23-8-1
Highlights

• Support for: Immortals of Aveum™

Fixed Issues

• Improvements to high idle power when using select multi-display setups with mixed high-resolution and high refresh rate displays on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs with variable refresh rate enabled. Further optimizations are being investigated to improve idle power on additional display configurations.
• Performance drop may be experienced for DirectX® 11 games on AMD Radeon™ RX 5600 XT when AMD SmartAccess Memory is Enabled.
• Application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Ratchet & Clank™: Rift Apart with Ray-Tracing and Dynamic Resolution Scaling enabled on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 7900 XTX.
• Application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Starcraft II™ on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs.
• Intermittent corruption may be observed playing Rocket League™ with Bloom set to Off on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 6900 XT.
• Performance drop may be experienced for various games on AMD Ryzen™ processors with Radeon™ 700M series GPUS.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 537.13
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-537-13
Highlights
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games including Starfield and the ICARUS: New Frontiers expansion.

Fixed Issues

• Fixed Gaming Bugs
  • [Battlefield 2042] Game stability can decrease when applying GeForce Experience Freestyle filters [4170804]
  • [Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart] Performance fluctuations due to issues between DirectStorage and NVIDIA Reflex [4212649]
• Fixed General Bugs
  • [Vegas Pro FX] Preview not working on some notebook configurations [3752618]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Baldur's Gate 3 modder enchants Gale's underwear with one of the most devastating spells in Dungeons & Dragons
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-modder-enchants-gales-underwear-with-one-of-the-most-devastating-spells-in-dungeons-and-dragons/
A Baldur's Gate 3 modder read the item description on Gale's underwear that suggests the wizard enchanted his own drawers and made it real.
The mod—which is titled like it'll be a part of a series of brief tweaks—is called Gale's Magic Underpants - Meteor Swarm, which gives the wearer (most likely your magic-hungry wizard) one of the most devastating spells in Dungeons & Dragons.
Meteor Swarm is a level nine Evocation Spell that does 40-240 damage, and you can spread its attack onto three targets. It's not actually available in Baldur's Gate 3, but modder antichamp was able to tape a few existing spells together to make it happen. The explosion from Meteor Swarm is powerful enough to instantly kill most of the enemies you run into early on in the RPG. I went and used Gale's hidden spell on the three ogres in the Blighted Village and it basically leveled the entire building.
>> There's a short gif/video.

GAMING NEWS

Here are over 30 minutes of leaked gameplay from Starfield
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-over-30-minutes-of-leaked-gameplay-from-starfield/
YouTube’s ‘DHavenShadow’ has shared a new video, showcasing over 30 minutes of leaked gameplay footage from Starfield. This video packs off-camera footage, meaning that you won’t be able to fully appreciate the game’s graphics.

Forza Motorsport supports DLSS 2/FSR 2.0 & DirectStorage on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/forza-motorsport-supports-dlss-2-fsr-2-0-directstorage-on-pc/
Microsoft and Turn10 have revealed some new tech details about the PC version of Forza Motorsport. According to the teams, the game will support DLSS 2/FSR 2.0 and DirectStorage on PC. Moreover, you can find below the full PC system requirements for Forza Motorsport.
>> 130GB of storage...