The Wednesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has launched its Halloween Sale, featuring up to 90% discounts on more than 2000 games from now until the 3rd of November. Be aware that the sale also features flash deals, so check it out every now and then (they seem to last 48 hours each). You can learn more here; https://www.gog.com/news/the_spooky_and_creepy_halloween_sale_has_launched_on_gog

Steam has two new daily deals:

• The first one is Chicken Police - Paint it RED! , that has a demo, is 40% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police__Paint_it_RED/
• The second one is We Happy Few, 90% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/320240/We_Happy_Few/

At the Humble Store we find the new EA Halloween Sale, featuring up to 75% discounts during the next 6 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/ea-halloween-sale/

And at Fanatical has two new deals:

• The new Star Deal is the recently launched DEATHLOOP, 45% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/deathloop
• And the new Guardian Bundle 4 features 11 games, split in three tiers of 3, 9 and 11 games, to get with an up to 97% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/guardian-bundle-4

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce 496.49 WHQL driver is optimized for Forza Horizon 5, Call of Duty: Vanguard & Jurassic World Evolution 2
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nvidia-geforce-496-49-whql-driver-is-optimized-for-forza-horizon-5-call-of-duty-vanguard-jurassic-world-evolution-2/
NVIDIA has released a brand new driver for its graphics cards. According to the green team, the NVIDIA GeForce 496.49 WHQL driver offers optimal performance in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest new titles and updates, including Age of Empires IV, Battlefield 2042 Early Access, Call of Duty: Vanguard, Chivalry 2, Forza Horizon 5, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Riders Republic.
This driver also fixes a couple of bugs. For instance, it resolves some visual corruption issues in Doom 3: BFG Edition. It also addresses the flickering/visual corruption issues in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.
>> Available from here.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

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GAMING NEWS

Shadow Warrior 3 has been delayed until 2022, gets a new in-engine trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/shadow-warrior-3-has-been-delayed-until-2022-gets-a-new-in-engine-trailer/
Devolver has announced that Shadow Warrior 3 has been delayed until 2022. The publisher claims that the game needs a bit more polishing, which is why it has decided to delay it. Additionally, Devolver released a new in-engine trailer that you can find below.

Doom Eternal Update 6.66 is now available for download on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/doom-eternal-update-6-66-is-now-available-for-download-on-pc/
id Software has just released Update 6.66 for Doom Eternal. This patch is 6.6GB in size on Steam, and brings a Horde Mode, as well as Battlemode 2.0.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is completely broken on NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs & AMD’s latest drivers
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/marvels-guardians-of-the-galaxy-is-completely-broken-on-nvidias-maxwell-gpus-amds-latest-drivers/
Square Enix has just released Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and it appears that the game is completely unplayable on NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs. Not only that, but the game has major graphical issues/glitches on AMD’s latest drivers.
>> For AMD users, just revert back to the previous drivers, for Maxwell users... pray for a quick fix.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint Operation Motherland will introduce new Conquest Mode & progression system
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-breakpoint-operation-motherland-will-introduce-new-conquest-mode-progression-system/
Ubisoft has announced that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint: Operation Motherland will be available on November 2nd. This free update will introduce a new Conquest Mode, an updated progression system, and Optical Camo.

Chernobylite’s first free DLC released, adds new enemies & side quest
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/chernobylites-first-free-dlc-released-adds-new-enemies-side-quest/
The Farm 51 has released the first free DLC for Chernobylite, called Monster hunt. This free DLC adds some new enemies and a new side quest. Additionally, it packs a number of fixes and tweaks.

The Wednesday news, part two:

GTA Trilogy removes reference to Confederate flag
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/gta-trilogy-removes-reference-to-confederate-flag/
It looks like Rockstar has removed references to the Confederate flag in the upcoming GTA Trilogy remaster.
As noted by Kotaku, the newest trailer for the trilogy shows recurring character Phil Cassidy—a drunken arms dealer and Grade A idiot—no longer sporting a t-shirt with the Confederate flag. Instead, it's changed to a skull and yellow banner. It's a real 'blink and you'll miss it' moment if you're only casually watching the trailer, but you can catch it at around 34 seconds.
>> I don't fully understand this move since a confederate flag on a moron is a close portrayal of that sub-set of human beings. who could get more offended by the presence of that flag on that guy?

BlizzCon on 'pause' as Blizzard aims for a more 'welcoming and inclusive' event
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/blizzcon-on-pause-as-blizzard-aims-for-a-more-welcoming-and-inclusive-event/
Blizzard has announced a "pause" on plans for an online BlizzCon event that was expected to take place in early 2022, saying that the effort required to mount the show "is best directed towards supporting our teams."
>> As DroidKnight aptly posted on the news article about this: "We at Blizzard have decided to allow more time to pass by in the hopes that people forget our past indiscretions."

Crusader Kings 3's first big expansion won't be out until 2022
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/crusader-kings-3s-first-big-expansion-wont-be-out-until-2022/
At PDXCon in May, Paradox announced Royal Court, a full-sized expansion for Crusader Kings 3 to follow the smaller Northern Lords DLC. Though a release date wasn't mentioned, it went up for preorder on Steam and the Paradox Store and was expected fairly soon. As Paradox has announced on its forum, however, it won't be ready this year.

PSA: Alt-tabbing out of Destiny 2 could result in a PvP timeout thanks to a major exploit
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/psa-alt-tabbing-out-of-destiny-2-could-result-in-a-pvp-timeout-thanks-to-a-major-exploit/
Bungie is coming down on players who've been exploiting a major game-breaking bug in Destiny 2, but the current solution may be pulling legitimate players into the crossfire too.

Intel 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake-S” final specifications and pricing leak ahead of launch

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-12th-gen-core-alder-lake-s-final-specifications-and-pricing-leaks-ahead-of-launch

Finally some gaming slides. But wait for independent reviews just in case. There should be more info coming out today so I might post some more news.

Nintendo 64 emulation on the Nintendo Switch is not good.... | MVG

When a paid service is not as good as normal emulators... You just know their effort was extremely lazy. Even the online implementation is bad. And no, he isn't talking about all the added features that you get with PC emulators but instead, there's a lot of basic issues like how there's broken Fog in Ocarina of Time... In an Official Nintendo port...

BlizzCon on 'pause' as Blizzard aims for a more 'welcoming and inclusive' event
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/blizzcon-on-pause-as-blizzard-aims-for-a-more-welcoming-and-inclusive-event/
Blizzard has announced a "pause" on plans for an online BlizzCon event that was expected to take place in early 2022, saying that the effort required to mount the show "is best directed towards supporting our teams."
>> As DroidKnight aptly posted on the news article about this: "We at Blizzard have decided to allow more time to pass by in the hopes that people forget our past indiscretions."

If Diabro 4 and OW2 are good. Dunno anything about WOW stuff. No one will remember. Are they still supporting Hots? I got into Hearthstone last year again but just can't do it anymore.

I am mainly just looking forward to Diablo 4 as I haven't seen anything care worthy about OW2 yet. Hopefully they don't goof em up.

Decent numbers for gaming on ADL. Pricing is good as well. Not enough of a jump for me to consider upgrading again just yet (will look into Raptorlake/Zen 4), though it definitely trashes Zen 3 from a price/performance perspective when comparing RRP.

And that emulation is disappointing. Granted its still new and can be improved upon for Nintendo not to match some already existing emulator is, not good. Especially for games running on a premium service.

That reminds me.. Steam Deck is coming soon (for lucky folks)! Mine is still scheduled for Q1 next year :<

Intel 12th-gen Core CPUs are official: Performance preview, Alder Lake models and specs

https://www.techspot.com/news/91949-intel-12th-gen-core-cpus-official-performance-preview.html

Yea it's official now!

Linus also has a video that does a good job of explaining things

He has a good number of concerns. When those gaming benchmarks were tested, Intel was using Windows 11 Pro even on Ryzen CPUs... And this was pre-patched so take it with massive amounts of salt until we get independent reviews. But there's also a lot of interesting things. I'd certainly give it a watch in order to become fully up to date and it's only 12 minutes long.

ASUS Unleashes Z690 ROG, ROG STRIX, TUF Gaming, PRIME Motherboards: Prices & Specifications Detailed, Pre-Orders Open Now!

https://wccftech.com/asus-unleashes-z690-rog-rog-strix-tuf-gaming-prime-motherboards-prices-specifications-detailed-pre-orders-open-now/

Asus isn't the only company of course but looking at the specifications... As predicted, there are indeed slots for PCI-E Gen 5 x4 SSDs. Just that you gotta pay a pretty penny.

Also on that graph on their test system i9 12900K + 4400Mhz RAM vs i9 11900K/Ryzen 5950X with 3200Mhz RAM. Oh Intel.

HWU overview.

I do think they'll have the advantage though nowhere near as much as this shows.

Overall it is very exciting times ahead. Next week is when we will see Independent reviews come out. If Intel is 20% faster in gaming benchmarks, that would be excellent performance. If they are 10%, then it's good but not great. According to Linus, AMD is expecting to have up to 25% increase in gaming performance with Zen Vcache which would be pretty nuts if true. But as a platform, Intel will be well ahead at least until Zen 4 arrives and with tech like PCI-E Gen 5 and DDR5, it will be hard not to recommend them unless the actual performance turns out to be terrible.

Overall the pricing is meh but least there's the KF models if you don't need an iGPU. Considering the MSRP of 5000 series was pretty high without iGPUs, I think it's fair enough assuming the performance is there. The i9 will most likely be a skip for most people though.

The small cores are supposed to perform like 10th gen without hyperthreading where as the big cores are supposed to be 28% faster which is nuts.