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

[JEMC]

Since Jizz/Yuri is still missing (although he's online on Steam...), let's go with some more news.

MORE WAYS TO PLAY YOUR GOG GAMES – WE’RE TEAMING UP WITH LUNA CLOUD STREAMING SERVICE!
https://www.gog.com/en/news/bmore_ways_to_play_your_gog_games_were_teaming_up_with_luna_cloud_streaming_serviceb
Soon, you’ll be able to play your favorite games from our store, like the Witcher series or Cyberpunk 2077, on multiple devices of your choice. We’re teaming up with Amazon Luna cloud gaming service to give you even more ways of enjoying your titles, while still keeping our mission of DRM-free gaming. We’ve set up a blog post explaining everything in more detail so make sure to check it out HERE.

Baldur's Gate 3 wins again: It was the most-played game on Steam Deck over the past 12 months
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/handheld-gaming-pcs/baldurs-gate-3-wins-again-it-was-the-most-played-game-on-steam-deck-over-the-past-12-months/
Valve has revealed the list of the top 100 most-played games on Steam Deck between March 2023 and March 2024 and it's yet another trophy for Baldur's Gate 3, which claimed the top spot despite only being available for half that time.

Sony's reportedly stopped making any more PS VR2 headsets until it can figure out a way of shifting a pile of unsold VR goggles
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/vr-hardware/sonys-reportedly-stopped-making-any-more-ps-vr2-headsets-until-it-can-figure-out-a-way-of-shifting-a-pile-of-unsold-vr-goggles/
Sony's virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation VR2, is a lovely device but it has a few drawbacks. It only works on that system, there's not a huge amount of great VR games to play on it, and it's as expensive as the base console. So with sales on the decline, Sony has put a temporary halt on production, to stop its warehouses from clogging up with unsold stock.
>> And that’s why the rumors about PS VR2 coming to PC seem legit.

Latest Windows 11 Update Breaks AMD iGPU Drivers, Ryzen APU Handhelds & Laptops Affected
https://wccftech.com/latest-windows-11-update-breaks-amd-igpu-drivers-ryzen-apu-handhelds-laptops/
AMD Ryzen APU-powered handhelds and laptops are facing performance-breaking bugs with the latest Windows 11 update which breaks the iGPU driver.

Steam Play Gets NVIDIA’s Reflex Technology In New VKD3D-Proton Update
https://wccftech.com/steam-play-gets-nvidia-reflex-technology-in-new-vkd3d-proton-update/
VKD3D-Proton, a translation layer used for Steam Play on Linux, has seen the inclusion of NVIDIA's Reflex technology in the latest update.
Phoronix reports that Valve's Steam Deck could potentially leverage NVIDIA's reflex technology after a new update on the VKD3D-Proton has added support for the feature.
>> I fail to see how the AMD powered Deck could benefit from this, but good new for Linux users.

AMD Zen 5 "Znver5" CPU Enablement Spotted in Change Notes
https://www.techpowerup.com/320510/amd-zen-5-znver5-cpu-enablement-spotted-in-change-notes
Close monitoring of AMD engineering activities—around mid-February time—revealed the existence of a new set of patches for GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). At the time, news reports put spotlights on Team Red's "znver5" enablement—this target indicated that staffers were prepping Zen 5 processor microarchitecture with an expanded AVX instruction set (building on top of Zen 4's current capabilities). Phoronix's Michael Larabel has fretted over AMD's relative silence over the past month—regarding a possible merging of support prior to the stable release of GCC 14.
He was relieved to discover renewed activity earlier today: "AMD Zen 5 processor enablement has been merged to GCC Git in time for the GCC 14.1 stable release that will be out in the coming weeks. It was great seeing AMD getting their Zen 5 processor enablement upstreamed ahead of any Ryzen or EPYC product launches and being able to do so in time for the annual major GNU Compiler Collection feature release." (...)

AMD demos fully GPU-driven rendering through Work Graphs on Radeon RX 7900 XTX with 39% improvement
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-demos-fully-gpu-driven-rendering-through-work-graphs-on-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-with-39-improvement
Microsoft officially announced Work Graphs last week, but the formal introduction is taking place at GDC (Game Developer Conference). Attendees, primarily game developers, are shown the techniques and methods to utilize this new technology in games, which are designed to provide visible performance improvements.
(…)
AMD has showcased that Radeon RX 7900 XTX using Work Graphs can work 39% faster compared to conventional method. In other words, the standard technique involving ExecuteIndirect is 64% slower. Those are ‘super early numbers’, likely to be optimized in the future.
>> First Nvidia, now AMD.

AMD Makes HIP Ray Tracing Libraries Open-Source, Allowing Easier Integration Into Games & Apps
https://wccftech.com/amd-hip-ray-tracing-libraries-open-source-easier-integration-into-games-apps/
AMD has finally made its HIP Ray-Tracing library an open-source asset, allowing developers to incorporate RT capabilities into applications and leverage them.

NVIDIA Blackwell GB202 Gaming GPUs To Utilize TSMC 4NP Node, Significant Improvement To Cache & SM Throughput
https://wccftech.com/nvidia-blackwell-gb202-gaming-gpus-utilize-tsmc-4np-node-significant-improvement-cache-sm-throughput/
NVIDIA just announced its Blackwell GPUs for AI and now eyes are all set on its gaming parts which are rumored to feature the same TSMC 4NP node.