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)

GOG has launched its Weekly Sale, with up to 90% discounts during 6 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/weekly_deals_2_october.

Steam has launched a new Steam Fest, but that hasn't stopped them from launching new sales and weeklong deals:

• The Kalypso Media Publisher Sale 2023 features up to 75% discounts until October, 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/KalypsoMediaPublisherSale2023
• The Ghost Recon franchise goes on sale with up to 80% discounts until the 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/GhostReconFranchise
• Warhammer 40,000: Darktide will be 35% off until the 18th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361210/Warhammer_40000_Darktide/
• Pharaoh: A New Era is going to be 30% off until October, 23rd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1351080/Pharaoh_A_New_Era/
• And here's a small sample of the weeklong deals:
  • Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons will be 15% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1967260/Double_Dragon_Gaiden_Rise_Of_The_Dragons/
  • STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life gets a 30% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111170/STORY_OF_SEASONS_A_Wonderful_Life/
  • What Comes After is going to be half its price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1421760/What_Comes_After/
  • Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX, that has a demo, gets a 66% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1333470/Alex_Kidd_in_Miracle_World_DX/
  • Lost Words: Beyond the Page is going to be 77% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/599610/Lost_Words_Beyond_the_Page/
  • And the last one, Tetraminos, with a 90% deal: https://store.steampowered.com/app/539280/Tetraminos/

The Humble Store has two new sales:

• The Team17 Fall Sale brings up to 90% discounts during 6 days. There are keys for Steam and direct downloads: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/team17-fall-sale/
• The Survive the Terror Sale features up to 90% discounts and, while some deals will last up to 13 days, most will last only 6. There are keys for Steam, EGS and also some direct downloads: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/survive-the-terror-sale/

And Fanatical's new Star Deal is SUPERHOT VR, 69% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/superhot-vr.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

INTEL Arc & Iris Graphics 31.0.101.4887
https://videocardz.com/driver/intel-arc-iris-graphics-31-0-101-4887
HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Support for Intel® Arc™ A580 Graphics.

GAMING HIGHLIGHTS:
Intel® Game On Driver support on Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics for:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Beta
• Total War: PHARAOH
• Lords of the Fallen

Game performance improvements versus Intel® 31.0.101.4885 software driver for:

• Starfield (DX12)
  • Up to 117% uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings
  • Up to 149% uplift at 1440p with High settings
• Forza Motorsport (DX12)
  • Up to 8% uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings

Game performance improvements versus Intel® 31.0.101.4826 software driver for<br/ >

• F1 23 (DX12)
  • Up to 12% uplift at 1440p with Ultra High settings
  • Up to 136% uplift at 2160p with Ultra High settings

Fixed Issues
Intel® Arc™ Graphics Products:

• Minecraft (DX12) may exhibit color corruptions in night scenes when ray tracing setting is on.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 537.58
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-537-58
Highlights
Game Ready for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS technology. This includes the launch of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Open Beta, Forza Motorsport, and Lords of the Fallen.

Fixed Issues
Fixed Gaming Bugs

• Add Microsoft Store/Xbox Game Pass application profile for Lies of P [4290286]

Fixed General Bugs

• [GeForce RTX 4060] GPU monitoring utilities reporting incorrect idle power usage [4186490]
• Increased DPC latency may be observed when GPU is connected over HDMI 2.1 FRL at 10bpc/12bpc [4253581]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

You can now download a cool Halo-inspired Mod for Doom 3
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/you-can-now-download-a-cool-halo-inspired-mod-for-doom-3/
Modder ‘Valkyries7331’ has released a cool mod for Doom 3 with the goal of putting the events of Doom 3 in the Halo Universe. What this means is that the mod adds weapons, character models, items, and lore elements from Halo in Doom 3.
For those wondering, this Halo-inspired Mod does not introduce any enemies from Bungie’s titles. Instead, you’ll be fighting your usual cacodemons, lost souls, imps, knights of hell, and all the monsters that are already available in Doom 3.
There is really nothing more to add here. If you enjoyed Halo and Doom 3, we strongly suggest giving this mod a go. After all, it mashes up these two games into one horror experience.
>> The article has an almost 3 minutes video of the mod.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl gets an AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/stalker-shadow-of-chernobyl-gets-an-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack/
Modder ‘ketxxx’ has released an AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. This pack improves all of the game’s textures while also retaining their original art style.
Going into more details, this HD Texture Pack takes all of the vanilla textures, normalparallax maps and remasters them to 2x, 4x, or 8x their original resolution, while also taking into consideration the type of texture and the size of mesh andor level geometry it is applied to.
This mod also comes with a few quality-of-life improvements. For instance, traders can now repair weapons and armor. Additionally, ketxxx has included OGSR 2.1.320 to preserve maximum compatibility and usability for users. OGSR 2.1.320 also adds support for DX9,10,11 renderers). Furthermore, the pack comes with the ABC Sleeping Mod and Stalker Weather Overhauled v3.1.
>> The article has some screenshots.

Half-Life 2 gets a 6.8GB AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/half-life-2-gets-an-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack/
Modder ‘deeppurple1968’ has released a new AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for Half-Life 2. This pack upscales all of the game’s textures by four times using the neural network Topaz A.I. Gigapixel.
Moreover, this mod partially includes higher resolution upscaled files from Half Life 2 High Quality Texture Replacements, Garry’s Mod NPC Enhancements, HQ 2k Airboat texture, HL2 High-Quality Main Character Skin Pack and some leaked texture sources. All of these custom textures have been adjusted and are fully consistent with the original HL2 textures.
>> There's a roughly 2 minutes video of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

Starfield Patch 1.7.36 adds FOV sliders & improves stability on Intel GPUs
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/starfield-patch-1-7-36-adds-fov-sliders-improves-stability-on-intel-gpus/
Bethesda has just released a new patch for Starfield that adds FOV sliders and improves the game’s stability on Intel’s graphics cards. Moreover, it fixes an issue where tunneling creatures could pick a location that would prevent progression.

Flasback 2 gets an official story trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/flasback-2-gets-an-official-story-trailer/
Microids has released the official story trailer for Flashback 2, a thrilling adventure bringing the legendary Flashback franchise back to life in all its glory.

Square Enix has removed Denuvo from the HD-2D Remake of LIVE A LIVE
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/square-enix-has-removed-denuvo-from-the-hd-2d-remake-of-live-a-live/
Square Enix has just removed the Denuvo anti-tamper tech from its HD-2D Remake of LIVE A LIVE. LIVE A LIVE was released in April 2023, meaning that it took Square Enix almost six months in order to remove it.

Lords of the Fallen will support DLSS 3 and FSR 3.0 at launch
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/lords-of-the-fallen-will-support-dlss-3-and-fsr-3-0-at-launch/
It appears that CI Games’ upcoming Souls-like game, Lords of the Fallen, will officially support DLSS 3 Frame Generation. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Lords of the Fallen promises to offer amazing graphics. As such, it’s great news to see support for DLSS 3. Moreover, the game will support AMD FSR 3.0 at launch.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor Patch 7.5 released and detailed
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/star-wars-jedi-survivor-patch-7-5-released-and-detailed/
Respawn has just released a new update for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. According to the release notes, Update 7.5 packs a couple of fixes and improves the quality of reflections when Ray Tracing is disabled.

Last edited by JEMC - on 10 October 2023