So, a new Steam Winter Sale is live and with there's a new badge and cards with it so... here are mine in case you want to barter.

I have:

• Better with Friends
• Outstanding Visual Style
• Sit Back and Relax

And I'm missing:

• Labor of Love
• Best Soundtrack
• Game of the Year

The VR-mode of MS Flight Sim is gorgeous:

But I have to tweak some more settings for better performance.

Good. I'll do it once I get back in the afternoon, or yuou can do it now and I'll accept it later. I don't really care which of the missing two cards I get in the exchange.

*** NEW CONTESTS ***

• Guru3D 2020 December 24st contest: Win GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER from PALIT https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/guru3d-2020-december-24st-contest-win-geforce-rtx-2080-super-from-palit.html

Please notice that the prize is an RTX 2080, and not one of the new 3080 cards. Still, it'd be a good upgrade for most of us.

• HEXUS EPIC Giveaway Day 10: Win a Corsair gaming bundle https://hexus.net/tech/features/peripherals/147105-day-10-win-corsair-gaming-bundle/

The bundle consists of a K100 RGB mechanical gaming keyboard, a Dark Core RGB Pro SE wireless gaming mouse, a Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE gaming headset and an MM350 PRO Premium mousepad.

Of course, given that this is a kind of "meh" prize, this contest is GLOBAL.

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

NieR Automata has sold over 5 million copies on all platforms
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nier-automata-has-sold-over-5-million-copies-on-all-platforms/
Square Enix has announced that NieR Automata has sold over 5 million copies worldwide on all platforms. The publisher did not reveal any platform-specific figures, though SteamSpy hints at the PC version selling between one and two million copies.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Empty as well-

GAMING NEWS

Cyberpunk 2077 Update 1.06 released, fixes the 8MB save issue, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/cyberpunk-2077-update-1-06-released-fixes-the-8mb-save-issue-full-patch-notes/
CD Projekt RED has released a brand new update for the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077. According to the release notes, Update 1.06 fixes/removes the 8MB save file size limit. As such, PC gamers can now craft as many items as they want.

New trailer released for Sons Of The Forest
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-trailer-released-for-sons-of-the-forest/
Endnight Games has released a new trailer for the sequel to The Forest, Sons of The Forest. Sons of The Forest will be using the Unity Engine, and will be coming to the PC in 2021.

Don’t expect to be playing Star Citizen’s single-player campaign, Squadron 42, anytime soon
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dont-expect-to-be-playing-star-citizens-single-player-campaign-squadron-42-anytime-soon/
Cloud Imperium has issued a new progress update, in which it revealed that Squadron 42 is nowhere close to being complete. As such, the team does not plan to show any gameplay footage for this game for the foreseeable future. In fact, you should not expect to be playing this single-player space combat game anytime soon.

Serious Sam 4 Patch 1.07 released, adds Christmas event and Survival Mode
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/serious-sam-4-patch-1-07-released-adds-christmas-event-and-survival-mode/
Croteam has released a brand new update for Serious Sam 4. According to the release notes, patch 1.07 brings a Christmas event, as well as a Survival Mode.

Tencent acquires Warframe developer Digital Extremes and several other studios
https://www.pcgamer.com/tencent-acquires-warframe-developer-digital-extremes-and-several-other-studios/
Tencent has acquired Leyou Technologies in a $1.5 billion deal, meaning the enormous Chinese corporation now owns even more of the games you know. The deal had been hinted at earlier this year, with Sony also reported to be interested, but was signed-off by Leyou shareholders on December 11 and finalised today.

Nothing else to ad. Given that there won't be more news until Monday, I wish you all a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, as you wish), and that you have a great time.

By the way, PCGamer has a new giveaway with 3 prizes: a 1TB Gold P31 for the grand prize winner as well as a 500GB Gold P31 variant for each of the two runner-ups, all from SK hynix.

In case you're interested, here's the linkto take part in it: https://www.pcgamer.com/want-to-pimp-your-rig-with-a-new-sk-hynix-gold-p31-ssd-dont-miss-this-giveaway/

So about 6 months ago, I said that PS5 beating SSDs would come out on PC around the time consoles launch if not before. And now, we have 3 companies that have released their next generation SSDs. Samsung 980 Pro, Western Digital SN850 and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus which all promise to deliver 7GB/s reads. And the reviews are quite interesting:

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9698/sabrent-rocket-4-plus-1tb-2-nvme-ssd/index.html

From what I can tell, they are all over the place depending on the benchmark. But on average, the pattern seems to be:
Samsung 980 Pro seems to have the best reads and for large file transfers, the best writes. But otherwise, notably slower writes than both the SN850 and Rocket 4 Plus
Western Digital SN850 seems to at times be as good as 980 pro in terms of reads and at times, as good as Rocket 4 Plus in terms of writes.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus seems to have the best writes but slower reads than 980 Pro and SN850

In the only gaming test they did, the SN850 > 980 Pro > Rocket 4 Plus but it's not gonna mean much as RTX IO/Direct Storage isn't out yet.

So overall, the best one seems to be SN850 as the best all around. 980 Pro seems to have the best reads more consistently so it could do better in gaming in theory and Rocket 4 Plus seems to have the best writes more consistently as long as you don't run out of Dram cache.

The test tells me that Samsung is the best choice for a dedicated gaming PC, which is what I expected. While I don't care about write speeds it's still kinda weird how terribly Samsung performs. One would think it has QLC with those snail speeds.

I used to joke (years ago) that by the time Star Citizen goes gold, the PS5 would be out and capable of running it. I might have to change that to PS6 now.