I didn't either, but I like to watch that sort of content and take on the new GPU hardware.

I myself will be skipping out this gen of GPU's since the price/performance, not to mention features just aren't there and even some that are, they are really under-utilized and left at the sidelines. My 1080ti should do me well for the next 3-4 years anyway for 1440p.

I'm not sure if the impact will be greater, in order to drive those prices down significantly. The real competition should be from AMD, but seeing as how Lisa seems focused on Apple/Sony, I don't see a high end AMD GPU entering the ring until at least 2021, and that's if it actually competes with whatever Nvidia has by then. last thing we need is yet another vega crapshoot. 

Yeah. Give it a few cycles and the real hardware to take advantage of Ray Tracing will be available.
AMD needs to get it's shit together.

Probably won't upgrade again until AMD's Next gen lands, Navi is probably a bust.

That's what I'm expecting, but AMD really does need to get their collective shit together. This whole "focus on mid to low end" game for years has been getting tiresome. I want to see real and big competition in the high end market. The more they decide not to compete in that area, the more control and abuse Nvidia can dish out.

They need to go back to their small-die, high performance strategy that put the Radeon 4870 and 5870 on the map whilst undercutting nVidia on price.
Those GPU's stood the test of time, especially the 5870.

Hoping AMD doesn't take the fixed function route of nVidia's ray tracing though. - Just throw more compute at the problem that can be leveraged for everything.

I hope they think of something, and that Lisa actually decides it's worth investing into, because if not, then AMD will be bowing out of that high end market and allowing Nvidia the whole share of the high end sector. 

For a while, it looked like AMD was pursuing the same route they did with their CPUs on their GPUs, developing small-scale GPU dies and connect them through some variation of the Infinity Fabric they use for their processors. And I think it would have been a great idea, using smaller and cheaper chips to create bigger and more powerful GPUs that are able to compete with Nvidia's offerings (remember the "2x480 offer the same performance as a 1080" bluff we got when AMD launched Polaris?), but it looks like they underestimated the difficulties, or the results weren't as good as they hoped for.

In any case, going for smaller dies isn't going to work now unless they have the performance to challenge/match Nvidia's products, and given that they can't do it now with big dies, I don't see how they'll be able to do it with small ones (unless they can use magic, of course).

Tuesday news:

SALES & "SALES"/DEALS

Before we get into the sales, does anyone know how to see if GOG still has a daily deal? Because I can't see it anywhere with the new layout.

Let's get now in to the sales at Steam, listing the daily and some of the weeklong deals:

• The daily deal is Stories Untold, 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/558420/Stories_Untold/
• Planetbase is 25% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/403190/Planetbase/
• 20XX is 40% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/322110/20XX/
• The Call of Juarez bundle is on sale, 69% off. But if you don't want both games, Call of Juarez is 75% off and Call of Juarez Gunslinger is 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7421/Call_of_Juarez_Bundle/
• Endless Legend is 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/289130/Endless_Legend/
• And Titan Quest Anniversary Edition is 80% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/475150/Titan_Quest_Anniversary_Edition/

On the Humble Store, there's a new Tiny Build Bundle. The catch of this bundle is that, besides the discounts that the games have, if you buy three or more, you'll get an even bigger discount. The sale will last another 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/tinybuild-byob/

And at Fanatical, there are two sales to talk about:

• The Hitman franchise is on sale, up to 75% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/franchises/hitman
• THQ Nordic has its games on sale up to 85% off, and they have quite a few games... https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/thq-nordic

SOFTWARE

-empty-

MODS/EMULATORS

Skyrim mod lets you clone an army of yourself
https://www.pcgamer.com/skyrim-mod-lets-you-clone-an-army-of-yourself/
Earlier this year, I wrote about PsykotikKrymes' The Doppelganger Follower—a mod which lets you add yourself as a companion in Skyrim Special Edition. The creator's latest venture, Clone Conjuration, takes the idea one step further by letting you conjure an army of self-styled clones.
Whereas as The Doppelganger Follower offers a permanent follower, Clone Conjuration summons twins of the Dragonborn to lead into battle. Court Wizards sell it, bandit mages drop it, or "if you're impatient", says PsykotikKrymes, the spell can be obtained from the food table in Dragonreach—"in the room with the cooking spit".
Clones replicate your spells and shouts, but not your armour.

GAMING NEWS

New gameplay trailer released for Onimusha Warlords Remaster
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-gameplay-trailer-released-for-onimusha-warlords-remaster/
Capcom has released a new gameplay trailer for Onimusha Warlords Remaster. This trailer will give you an idea of what you can expect from this remaster, though I should strongly suggest tempering your expectations. From what I’ve seen, I can say that Onimusha Warlords has not aged well.

New Resident Evil 2 Remake screenshots released
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-resident-evil-2-remake-screenshots-released/
Capcom has released a new set of screenshots for the upcoming remake of Resident Evil 2. These new screenshots showcase Claire Redfield, Leon Kennedy, some environments and the game’s iconic Licker enemy.

World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth patch 8.1 will significantly improve CPU multi-thread under DX12
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/world-of-warcraft-battle-for-azeroth-patch-8-1-will-significantly-improve-cpu-multi-thread-under-dx12/
As we’ve reported back in, Blizzard has added DX12 support to World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth via patch 8.0. However, it appears that the initial DX12 results were not that ideal as DX11 was still outperforming it. Instead of sitting idle, though, Blizzard decided to improve CPU multi-thread under Microsoft’s latest API and its upcoming patch 8.1 will bring significant performance improvements.

Square Enix’s Left Alive has been delayed once again, now releasing on March 5th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/square-enix-left-alive-has-been-delayed-once-again-now-releasing-on-march-5th/
Square Enix has announced that its survival action game, Left Alive, has been delayed yet again. The game was meant to come out in February 2019, however the publisher has just revealed that the game will now come out on March 5th.

Tuesday news, part two:

Fortnite dev Epic Games buys anti-cheat firm Kamu
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-dev-epic-games-buys-anti-cheat-firm-kamu/
Fortnite creator Epic Games has purchased Kamu—a security firm based in Helsinki whose 'Easy Anti-Cheat' provides players with a "holistic anti–cheat service"

The DCS series continues to quietly be one of the prettiest things on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-dcs-series-continues-to-quietly-be-one-of-the-prettiest-things-on-pc/
Perhaps one of the most famous jet fighters of all time, the F-14 Tomcat, is making its way into DCS World this winter. Developers Heatblur have been working on the F-14 for four years, with incredibly detailed modeling going into everything from the aeronautics and flight characteristics to the individual bolts, buttons, and switches in the cockpit.

>>There's a 10 minute long video in the article to show the new aircraft.

Warcraft 3’s Mal’Ganis the dreadlord is Heroes of the Storm’s next character
https://www.pcgamer.com/warcraft-3s-malganis-the-dreadlord-could-be-heroes-of-the-storms-next-character/
After a few days of tweeting cryptic gifs, the Heroes of the Storm Twitter account has put out an image of a full-on Warcraft Nathrezim Dreadlord. Yesterday, it tweeted a gif a lot like some people getting destroyed by the dreadlord ability Carrion Swarm, and today, voila: a full body shot of a bat-winged corruption demon. It’s about time for the game to get a new character, so we’re expecting that this big demon is it, and it seems like the demon may well be Mal’Ganis. An exciting prospect if you’ve played Warcraft 3, since Mal’Ganis is so pivotal to that game’s plot.
Update Blizzard has confirmed that Mal'Ganis the dreadlord, of Warcraft 3 fame, is coming to Heroes of the Storm, a warrior with disruptive abilities who will likely excel as a solo-laner with strong sustain. In addition to strong abilities and a lot of health steal, Mal'Ganis has some weird, quirky talents, like one that makes him blind. According to Blizzard's announce video, Mal'Ganis will be available 'shortly.'

Bethesda would like to remind you once again that singleplayer games aren't dead
https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-would-like-to-remind-you-again-that-singleplayer-games-arent-dead/
“We thought it was important to say: hey, new IP, single player, sci-fi thing coming, hey we are doing TES6 after that,” said Bethesda senior vice president Pete Hines in an interview with Eurogamer. He continued: “So that people didn’t start spinning off on, like, that’s the end of singleplayer games from Bethesda Game Studios.” It's not a surprising thing to hear from the studio, given many gamers' negative reaction to BioWare, a primarily singleplayer RPG studio, making upcoming multiplayer game Anthem.

Cyberpunk 2077 brings on multiplayer specialist studio Digital Scapes
https://www.pcgamer.com/cyberpunk-2077-brings-on-multiplayer-specialist-studio-digital-scapes/
CD Projekt Red has announced a “long-term strategic cooperation” on Cyberpunk 2077 with an outside development studio. That studio is Digital Scapes, which bills itself as “a video game development studio specialising in bespoke PvP gameplay for AAA PC and console titles.”

Fortnite teases Quad Launcher as next weapon
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-teases-quad-launcher-as-next-weapon/
The best weapons in Fortnite are determined by circumstance, strategy and tactics. Me? I like blowing things up, wherever and whenever—which is why I'm digging the battle royale's next incoming firearm. As teased via the game's message of the day screen, Fortnite is getting a Quad Launcher.

Stories Untold dev reveals sci-fi thriller Observation, due in 2019
https://www.pcgamer.com/stories-untold-dev-reveals-sci-fi-thriller-observation-due-in-2019/
No Code, the studio behind 2017 sleeper hit Stories Untold, has announced its next game. Observation is a contemporary sci-fi thriller that lets players control a sentient space station AI. It's due next year, and its announcement trailer features above.

Hunt: Showdown teases much-anticipated second map
https://www.pcgamer.com/hunt-showdown-teases-much-anticipated-second-map/
Hunt: Showdown is just incredible, said our Steven after being shown an early build of Crytek's latest at E3 2017. The multiplayer survival game has come some ways since—having improved on its optimisation, matchmaking and performance during this year alone. Today, it offers the teasiest of teasers for its second and much-anticipated map.

Well. It might be possible now as nVidia has pulled a Geforce FX with the 2000 series, that has given AMD some breathing room to catch up possibly.
Th RX 480/580 was still a large chip for the performance level we got though... And Vega 64 was massive.

Vega 64 for example was 486 mm².
The Geforce 1080 was 314mm2.
***************************
Radeon RX 480 was 232mm2.
Geforce 1060 was 200mm2.

AMD has a big issue in regards to efficiency and die size, they need to rein it all in, because not only were the nVidia chips smaller, they used less power and they were faster.

Well, now that AMD has a proper CPU I'm sure they could scale back the compute side of their GPUs, freeing space to make them smaller or better at games. But that would probably affect their DX12 performance and, with Ray Tracing gaining traction, that side of their GPUs could come in handy for that.

So, what AMD/RTG needs is to drop GCN and develop a new architecture from scratch (or almost). Too bad that's easier said than done.