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

[JEMC]

The news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Palworld beats Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 with an all-time peak player count of more than 1.8 million
https://www.pcgamer.com/palworld-beats-counter-strike-2-dota-2-and-cyberpunk-2077-with-an-all-time-peak-player-count-of-more-than-18-million/
Palworld continues its runaway success, and after selling more than 6 million copies in just four days the developers now have another reason to celebrate: it's managed to grab the second spot in Steam's most played games when it comes to all-time peak concurrents.
The critter-based survival game is giving every other game in the history of Steam a run for its money today, reaching a peak concurrent player count of 1,864,421. Not only does that make it Steam's most popular game right now, it also secures its legacy as the game with the second highest all-time peak concurrent player count, stealing the spot from Counter-Strike 2 by a handful of people.

GOG has three new Deals of the Day, available until Friday:

• Bzzzt gets a 25% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/bzzzt
• Stellar Warfare, still in Early Access, is 27% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/stellar_warfare
• Spacecom has a 90% deal: https://www.gog.com/en/game/spacecom

Steam has a new deal and a sale:

• Quantum Break will be 75% off until January, the 30th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/474960/Quantum_Break/
• The Fulqrum Publisher Sale features up to 90% discounts until the same 30th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/fulqrumpublishersale2024

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 24.1.1 driver
https://videocardz.com/driver/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-24-1-1
Highlights

New Game Support

• Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
• TEKKEN 8

New Product Support

• AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT

AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF)
Boost FPS up to 97% for a smoother gaming experience by adding frame generation technology to any DirectX 11 and 12 game.

• AFMF improves performance by adding frame generation technology to AMD Radeon 700M, RX 6000, and RX 7000 series GPUs for notebook and desktop platforms.
  • to 97% average increase in performance across select titles at 1080p resolution when AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) is ON and upscaled with FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) at Quality Mode, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition ️ 24.1.1 on the Radeon RX 7600XT GPU, versus when AFMF and FSR 2 upscaling are OFF.
  • to 103% average increase in performance across select titles at 1440p resolution when AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) is ON and upscaled with FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) at Quality Mode, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition ️ 24.1.1 on the Radeon RX 7600XT GPU, versus when AFMF and FSR 2 upscaling are OFF.
• AFMF preserves image quality by dynamically disabling frame generation during fast visual motion.

AMD Video Upscaling
Advanced video upscale algorithm to improve video playback image quality for AMD Radeon RX 7000 desktop series GPUs.

• AMD Video Upscaling can be enabled within the Graphics tab to enjoy improved sharpness and clarity, for DirectX 11 applications such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Media Player, with resolution support up to 4K.
• For more instructions on how to enable upscaling, please ensure that your version of AMD Software is up to date, and learn more HERE!

Additional Video Improvements

• Content Adaptive Machine Learning (CAML) text detection has been updated to support up to 4K gaming for even greater clarity.
• Various encoding support within AMD Software including AVC, HEVC and AV1 codecs have undergone additional optimizations to improve video encode quality.
• AMD continues to work with partners to implement video enhancements into 3rd party apps; more updates to follow in upcoming drivers.

AMD Smart Technology Tab
Access the suite of great A+A features from one convenient location to maximize the power of your AMD-powered system. AMD Assistant
Automatically enable or disable AMD Software features based on various situations for improved performance or battery life. Additional OS Feature Support

• Support for Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling has been expanded to Radeon RX 7600 series GPUs on Windows 11 version 22H2 and newer. Click HERE for more information.

Fixed Issues

• Performance drop may be observed in some DirectML workloads.
• Intermittent grey screen after driver upgrade with certain monitors (such as Nixeus NX-EDG274K) on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs.
• Graphics API metric may show as N/A in certain UWP applications.
• Heavy stuttering may be experienced while playing Warframe and loading into a new area or starting a mission.
• Black artifacts may be observed in smoke effects while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.
• Black texture flickering may be observed while playing Starfield on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon RX 5600 XT.
• Intermittent install failure may be observed when using the factory reset setting.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 551.23 driver
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-551-23
Highlights

Game Ready for GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS 3 technology including Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Further support for new titles leveraging NVIDIA DLSS technology includes the launch of Enshrouded, TEKKEN 8, and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League which support DLSS Super Resolution.

Gaming Technology

• Adds support for the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER GPU.

Fixed Issues

• Forza Horizon 4: Ansel/ Freestyle filters cause application to freeze or crash [4253513]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Tekken 8 just got a mod that lets you enable UE5 Lumen
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/tekken-8-just-got-a-demo-that-allows-you-to-enable-ue5-lumen/
Modder KulaGGin just dropped an awesome mod for Tekken 8 on PC. This mod lets PC gamers turn on Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen ray tracing. In theory, this should make Global Illumination and Reflections look way better. So, this could be a must-have for anyone playing Tekken 8 on PC.
For those unaware, Tekken 8 will not be using Lumen by default. As such, I’m curious to see what this mod can achieve. Right now, the mod is only compatible with the game’s PC demo. Thus, I’m currently downloading it so that I can share some screenshots.
And here’s another cool thing. With this mod, you can unlock the framerate in Tekken 8 on PC. Normally, the game is locked at 60fps, but now you can change that. There’s also an interpolation setting for when using Framerate Unlocker to make the animations look even smoother. This could be a game-changer for some PC gamers.
But wait, there’s more. With this mod, you can turn off baked-in lighting, which is a setting you need to disable when you turn on Lumen. Lumen doesn’t need baked-in lighting. You can also choose to turn off the character lights and all the other lights. Oh, and here’s another cool feature. You can completely turn off upscaling, something you can’t do in the regular version of the game.
>> The article doesn't have any screenshot nor video.

World's biggest mod site says no to Palworld Pokémon mods after taking one look at Nintendo's record of 'mercilessly submitting legal challenges'
https://www.pcgamer.com/worlds-biggest-mod-site-says-no-to-pokemon-palworld-mods-after-taking-one-look-at-nintendos-record-of-mercilessly-submitting-legal-challenges/
With tens of thousands of mods for games like Skyrim and Fallout, Nexus Mods must be the biggest mod site on Earth, but even it's not keen to pick a fight over Palworld with Nintendo's army of lawyers. After seemingly removing an Ash Ketchum mod for the game from its archives, Nexus community lead Matthew Elliot told PCGamesN that the site was "not comfortable hosting this content," meaning anything that might at all touch the livewire that is Pokémon's copyright.
"We do think that adding Pokémon content to Palworld is a very cool idea and we understand why people would want such a thing," said Elliot, but Nexus is just "not comfortable hosting this content." The reason, as you might guess, is Nintendo's litigiousness.

GAMING NEWS

Helldivers 2 dev explains the inclusion of nProtect GameGuard
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/helldivers-2-dev-explains-the-inclusion-of-nprotect-gameguard/
Helldivers 2 releases next month on PC and some PC gamers got annoyed when they found out that the game would be using the nProtect GameGuard anti-cheat. Apparently, this prompted Arrowhead’s technical director to step in and explain why the team has decided to use it.

The Finals Title Update 1.5.5 Released, Full Patch Notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-finals-title-update-1-5-5-released-full-patch-notes/
Embark Studios has just released a new update for its free-to-play online combat-centered game, The Finals. According to the team, Title Update 1.5.5 comes with some balance tweaks for weapons and gadgets, crash fixes, and an improvement to tournament matchmaking. So, let’s now take a closer look at all the changes.