Thursday news, part two:

The Dead Cells Barrels o' Fun update adds explosive new level and 8-bit soundtrack
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-dead-cells-barrels-o-fun-update-adds-explosive-new-level-and-8-bit-soundtrack/
The unfairly maligned explosive barrel is given a spotlight in Dead Cells' latest update, which bolts on a new level crammed to the rafters with barrels. It's a distillery, see, only instead of paying to go on a tour and maybe put your head in one of the whisky barrels, you're enduring spikes and explosions and being chased around by a vicious barrel on legs.

As Far As The Eye is a nomadic roguelike where you control a roving village
https://www.pcgamer.com/as-far-as-the-eye-is-a-nomadic-roguelike-where-you-control-a-roving-village/
I'm a little bit captivated by As Far As The Eye, a turn-based citybuilder/roguelike where you control a village resting on the back of a giant beast. It's an ambitious, weird concept that reminds me a little of For The King with its hex-based strategic rogueliking, but in a more intriguing fantasy world and with citybuilding elements.

Control is coming to Steam this month with both expansions and a lower price
https://www.pcgamer.com/control-is-coming-to-steam-this-month-with-both-expansions-and-a-lower-price/
Control came out in the summer of 2019, and it was fantastic. It was also an Epic Games Store exclusive, and despite how far the store has come (and all those free games), that's still a problem for some PC gamers. That won't be an issue for much longer, though, as Remedy and 505 announced today that Jesse's big adventure through a multi-dimensional weirdscape will finally arrive on Steam on August 27.

A zombie plague is ravaging World of Warcraft's test servers
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-zombie-plague-is-ravaging-world-of-warcrafts-test-servers/
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands big pre-expansion event is live on the test servers and it's unleashed an unfathomably large zombie plague on players, turning Azeroth's capital cities into undead wastelands. Hundreds of zombies are stalking the streets, devouring any NPC they can find—even including some that offer quests—and turning them into the undead. Players who get within arm's reach can also be infected, giving them special zom-bilities and letting them attack other players to spread the infection. Naturally, Azeroth is in utter chaos.

Metamorphosis, the Kafka-inspired game about being a bug, is out now
https://www.pcgamer.com/metamorphosis-the-kafka-inspired-game-about-being-a-bug-is-out-now/
Sometimes I wonder if the bug's life is ideal. Your only real concern is sustenance, and avoiding being crushed underfoot. Of course, Kafka's Gregor Samsa didn't get off that lightly: becoming a bug after first being a man would definitely not be fun, especially if you've got a family to support. The ye olde point and click adventure Bad Mojo didn't make the bug's life seem like much fun either. Still, I kinda wouldn't mind spending at least one day as a bug.
So I'm pretty excited to inhabit a bug in Metamorphosis, which releases today. The game is inspired by Kafka's classic short story of the same name, but I don't think you should expect a blow-by-blow account of it. Indeed, the game seems to be a tribute to Kafka's broader oeuvre: there are hints of The Trial and The Castle in the above launch trailer.

Demons Ate My Neighbors! is a co-op roguelike inspired by a 16-bit classic
https://www.pcgamer.com/demons-ate-my-neighbors-is-a-co-op-roguelike-inspired-by-a-16-bit-classic/
I suppose I should have expected this, after the surprise return of Mega Drive/Genesis oddballs Toejam and Earl, but the B-Movie-horror-themed action game Zombies Ate My Neighbors! is making a comeback. Well, ish. The delightfully on-the-nose Demons Ate My Neighbors! is an "unofficial spiritual sequel" to LucasArts' 16-bit co-op game that once again pits one or two suburban kids against a neighbourhood filled with supernatural creeps.

The Fall Guys Item Shop adds an adorable TF2 Scout costume
https://www.pcgamer.com/fall-guys-item-shop-new-skins/
The Fall Guys Item Shop has new items every day—new Fall Guys skins, colors, patterns, faces, emotes, and celebrations to buy for your bean and wear while you compete. After 24 hours, the stuff in the Fall Guys Item Shop is cycled out and new items become available.

Intel details the Willow Cove architecture in Tiger Lake: SuperFin transistors and better VF curves along with an official introduction to Alder Lake

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-details-the-Willow-Cove-architecure-in-Tiger-Lake-SuperFin-transistors-and-better-VF-curves-along-with-an-official-introduction-to-Alder-Lake.486079.0.html

There's more slides but I think those are the main key ones.

I keep forgetting Bethesda has it own store - temping as it is getting free Q2

Damn, have too many stores on my PC as it is. Steam, Epic Game Store, Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, Bethesda.net

lol keep it together man

SuperFin transistors — The +'s now have fancy names

One of the main enhancements that Intel stressed upon during the Architecture Day press brief was the new SuperFin transistor. While previous 14 nm FinFET processes allowed for a maximum of 5.9% intra-node performance delta, Intel said that the transition to 10 nm SuperFin allowed for greater than 15% intra-node delta from the base node, which is comparable to a full node transition. SuperFin uses a new capacitor design called SuperMIM (metal-insulator-metal), which delivers 5x the increase in MIM capacitance.

SuperFin will offer an improved gate process (for higher channel mobility), additional gate pitch (to drive higher current), and an enhanced epitaxial source/drain (to lower resistance and increase strain). Intel finally did acknowledge that the current naming convention in process improvements does have potential for confusion. Consumers may not know how a 14 nm++ node differs from the base 14 nm or 14 nm+ one. Going forward, Intel will be using defined nomenclature for intra-nodal improvements. For instance, the upcoming refinement to the 10nm SuperFin node will be called 10nm Enhanced SuperFin. Intel is currently optimizing this node for data center use.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-details-the-Willow-Cove-architecure-in-Tiger-Lake-SuperFin-transistors-and-better-VF-curves-along-with-an-official-introduction-to-Alder-Lake.486079.0.html

Lol so true. Hopefully EA coming back onto steam means that eventually, they will get rid of Origin.

The kicker is when you have all these launchers running in the background, they do eventually take enough ram to become noticeable.

Intel to Launch 'Xe HPG' PC Gaming Graphics Cards in 2021, Using Outside Foundry. - The article also has some info about Xe-LP which is their integrated graphics.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-to-launch-xe-hpg-pc-gaming-graphics-cards-in-2021-using-outside-foundry

" The company showed off an implementation of Xe LP technology running several major games, including the recently launched Doom Eternal and Battlefield 1, the latter a first-person shooter EA released in 2016. The Xe LP integrated graphics was able to run the latter title pretty smoothly at high settings, unlike last year’s Gen 11, which will struggle to keep frame rates up on high settings. "


(Anandtech has a Deep Dive of Xe-LP GPU) The Intel Xe-LP GPU Architecture Deep Dive: Building Up The Next Generation

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15973/the-intel-xelp-gpu-architecture-deep-dive-building-up-from-the-bottom

If it means them porting over my games from there, awesome. Steam is just about everyone default for PC (as it should be xP)

They should really do away from their store but i guess it makes them money. All I know is that once EA launches Mass Effect collection I'm 110% going to get it on Steam and not anywhere else.

How can some of you have problems with the launchers taking too much memory? I have to manually launch them and almost never have more than two of them running at the same time.

Anyway, the Tiger Lake processors based on Willow Cove are the for laptops, right?

Well I have 32GB of ram so it doesn't really matter for me but the idea is still annoying.

And yea, it's for laptops since Intel is only doing 10nm for laptops right now. Once they get the kinks worked out for 10nm, it should eventually go into desktop unless they go 7nm instead but who knows at this point.

Only God knows how Intel's fabs are doing with the new processes... and I'm not even sure he knows it either.

And about that, and maybe because of today's architecture day, we've had some gossip about what's been going on on Intel's fabs: https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ex-intel-employees-outs-dirt-about-intel-talks-about-internal-difficulties.html