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

[JEMC]

Let’s go with the Friday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

With its Summer Sale also over, the Humble Store has launched two new sales:

• The Sci-Fi Supernova Sale feaures up to 95% discounts during 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/scifi-supernova-sale/
• And Square Enix is now doing its own Summer Sale (because they’re too good to do it alongside the rest), and it’s putting its games up to 90% off during 12 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/square-enix-summer-sale/

Fanatical has a new sale and bundle:

• Team 17 Digital puts its games on sale, up to 92% off during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/team17-digital-ltd
• The BYO Jubilant Bundle has 22 games to choose for your 1+, 5+ or 10+ bundles: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-jubilant-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Fantasy Ruins Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo showcases the benefits of Ray Tracing/Lumen, and why pre-baked lighting remains the king of performance/visuals ratio
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/fantasy-ruins-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo-showcases-the-benefits-of-ray-tracing-lumen-and-why-pre-baked-lighting-remains-the-king-of-performance-visuals-ratio/
YouTube’s ‘Cycu1’ has shared a new interesting comparison video for the Fantasy Ruins Tech Demo of Unreal Engine 5. In this video, the YouTuber compares its UE5 version with and without Lumen/Ray Tracing. So, let’s take a closer look at it.
Unlike the Abandoned Warehouse Tech Demo, the Fantasy Ruins Demo looks much better with Lumen and Ray Tracing. In many scenes, the Lumen-powered version looks way better. Reflections, lighting, shadows, and other effects all improve with Lumen and Ray Tracing. Because of this, the demo looks less flat and more realistic.
>> The video is 17 minutes long.

DXVK Version 2.4 has been released with support for DX8
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dxvk-version-2-4-has-been-released-with-support-for-dx8/
Philip Rebohle has released a new version of DXVK that brings support for DX8. As such, PC gamers can now use DXVK to overcome some stutters and optimization issues that were present in old DX8 games.
For those unaware, DXVK is a tool that allows you to run Direct3D 8, 9, 10, and 11 games with the Vulkan API. This can resolve issues that older games had on PC, like GTA 4. In other words, this is a must for those who want to replay the classic/old PC games.
Going into more details, version 2.4 fixes various issues with D3D9 fixed-function texture coordinate processing. It also improves compatibility to third-party mods hooking various DXGI entry points. Not only that, but it fixes some pipeline layout compatibility issues.
It’s also worth noting that this latest version brings a number of game-specific tweaks and fixes. For instance, VSync will now work correctly in Dead Space 2. Furthermore, it fixes some rendering issues in Fallout: New Vegas when using certain mods.
Tomb Raider Legend, Red Faction Guerrilla Remastered, and the first Watch Dogs games will work better now. Not only that but V2.4 resolves some crashes in Rise of Nations, Battlefield 2, and BF 2142 that could occur when alt-tabbing.
And there is more. Fallout 4 will no longer be locked at 45fps on the Steam Deck OLED. The Sims 2 will also run better, without the low CPU-bound performance issues. Prototype will work now properly on both AMD and Intel GPUs. Finally, Dragonshard will run faster, and Gothic 3 and Guild Wars 2 will not have artifacts.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

This mod adds a Grand Theft Auto-inspired Taxi Driver Mode to Cyberpunk 2077
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/this-mod-adds-a-grand-theft-auto-inspired-taxi-driver-mode-to-cyberpunk-2077/
One of my favorite side activities in Grand Theft Auto 3 was its taxi mode. Believe it or not, I’ve spent countless times as a taxi driver when that game came out on PC. And finally, modder ‘RollermineC’ released a mod that adds a similar Taxi Driver mode to Cyberpunk 2077.
Thanks to this mod, players will take on the role of a Combat Cab driver. Moreover, they will be able to explore Night City as they transport passengers to their destinations.
Players need to pick up customers and drive them to their destinations. After each successful ride, players earn money based on how far they drove. By completing rides, players can unlock new vehicles from Autofixer and eventually get cars from Combat Cab.
>> The article has a roughly 3 minutes video.

This Witcher 3 mod that lets you play as a custom character or a whole new sorceress class is super promising, but maybe wait a few months for it to iron out the kinks
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/this-witcher-3-mod-that-lets-you-play-as-a-custom-character-or-a-whole-new-sorceress-class-is-super-promising-but-maybe-wait-a-few-months-for-it-to-iron-out-the-kinks/
One of the great strengths of The Witcher 3 is its star, Big Geralt—a character we as players get to guide through the game's major events, but with a defined history and personality giving those decisions added heft. Geralt isn't a blank amnesiac Chosen One like so many RPG heroes, and I love that—it's clear the writing, acting, and quests are all built around who he is and how he can leave his mark on the world around him. That focus makes a new mod for the game called Custom Player Characters all the more impressive, because it does a pretty dang good job of turning Geralt into any other character you'd like to play as.
I saw Custom Player Characters getting some talk this week and decided to install it for myself, a process that made me suspect the folks who've written about it haven't tried it. It's a bit of a bear: I had to download the mod itself, four supplemental mods, unzip them all in the base game folder, then download a Script Merger tool to make them all play nicely together. They didn't play nicely together, giving me some kind of scripting error when I tried to launch the game; either I messed something up or an older mod that I haven't touched in years got in the way. Anyway, after an hour of deleting files, re-extracting everything and attempting to launch the game half a dozen times I finally got it going.
Custom Player Characters works on an existing save file and is accessible from just about the very beginning of the game, as you and Vesemir are making your way to White Orchard. It pops a Chameleon potion into your inventory, and once you drink it you'll enter a character creation screen that lets you choose from the hundreds and hundreds of character models in The Witcher 3 and even mix body parts as you replace Geralt with a custom witcher. The bigger draw is playing as a "witcheress" (did we really need a gendered term for witchers?), so you can give Ciri a funny hat and custom outfit until she no longer looks like Ciri, or play as a wholly unrecognizable Viziman tweaked into your own creation. 
This customization is supported by some genuinely impressive animations tweaked for the female models and an AI-generated voice pack that reads all of Geralt's lines. There are three voice packs based on Yenn, Triss, and Ciri's voices, and from my cursory playthrough of the opening conversations in White Orchard, Ciri-as-Geralt sounds better than I expected. There's a telltale digital tinge to the voice, but it does actually come off as a higher pitch version of Geralt's growl. I don't love the use of AI to generate much of anything in games beyond higher resolution textures, but I do appreciate that modder Nikita Grebenyuk made a point of only using performances from The Witcher 3 as a basis.
>> The article has some screenshots and a video.

GAMING NEWS

GreedFall 2 hits Steam Early Access on September 24th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/greedfall-2-hits-steam-early-access-on-september-24th/
NACON has announced that GreedFall 2 will hit Steam Early Access on September 24th. To celebrate this announcement, the publisher shared a new trailer that you can find below.

Deliver Us Home has been funded on Kickstarter, mere hours before its end
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/deliver-us-home-has-been-funded-on-kickstarter-mere-hours-before-its-end/
KeokeN has announced that the Kickstarter Campaign for Deliver Us Home has hit its funding target. The team has raised 100K euros for its development, and it was able to hit that goal mere hours before its end.

Eyeballistic may be teasing HD remasters of the classic 2D Mortal Kombat games
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/eyeballistic-may-be-teasing-hd-remasters-of-the-classic-2d-mortal-kombat-games/
It appears that Eyeballistic’s CEO, Joe Tresca, may be teasing HD remasters of the classic 2D Mortal Kombat games. Earlier this week, Tresca shared the following two screenshots from what appear to be HD remasters of MK1 and MK2.
In 2018, Eyeballistic wanted to make an HD remake of the first three Mortal Kombat games. They planned to create all-new 3D models for the characters. Unfortunately, Warner Bros rejected that pitch. Then, in 2021, Eyeballistic announced they would try again to get Warner Bros to approve their project. Which leads us to today.