Theoretically, there shouldn't be anything stopping Maxwell/Polaris users from using FSR 2.0. It doesn't need special type of hardware and other TAAU implementation works on those old GPUs. I think AMD didn't really bother testing it so they didn't put it on their official support list kind of like the 590 is on there but not 480 which is basically the same GPU.

Here is the first DirectStorage showcase. Currently the API only supports CPU based decompression but GPU based one is coming.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/23/22993860/forspoken-pc-microsoft-directstorage-nvme-ssd-gdc

Effectively can double the read speeds on PC. A real PCI-e Gen 4 SSD should seen even more insane gains but in practice, Win32 is able to keep up pretty nicely.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Zen4 “Raphael” desktop 170W SKU rumored to feature 16 cores

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-7000-zen4-raphael-desktop-170w-sku-rumored-to-feature-16-cores


Intel Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) to feature five quality modes, including Ultra-Quality

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-xe-super-sampling-xess-to-feature-five-quality-modes-including-ultra-quality

It will be interesting to see how FSR/XeSS does against DLSS. While they both have great performance claims, the performance uplift doesn't really matter because rendering at a lower resolution will always give you a performance uplift. The key will be how close to Native they will be.


GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards are bundled with 3×8-pin to PCIe Gen5 (16-pin) power adapters

https://videocardz.com/newz/geforce-rtx-3090-ti-graphics-cards-are-bundled-with-3x8-pin-to-pcie-gen5-16-pin-power-adapters

A foreshadowing for Lovelace


AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 takes less than 3 days to implement for DLSS games, GeForce 10/20/30 series supported

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-fidelityfx-super-resolution-2-0-takes-less-than-3-days-to-implement-for-dlss-games-geforce-10-20-30-series-supported

Which makes sense as devs can replace DLSS/TAAU with FSR2.0 in the pipeline. The biggest question is how much better will FSR 2.0 be compared to TAAU and whether or not it will fix TAAU's issues.

M.2 gains with it are relatively small, but the gains with SSD seem to be better, though this is it in the early stages and used with a few test runs. We'll probably see how the gains grow over time when it's added to more games. 

The Thursday news

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Core Keeper blasts past half a million downloads on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/core-keeper-blasts-past-half-a-million-downloads-on-steam/
Core Keeper, the charming Terraria-like underground survival sim, has sold over half a million copies since launching in Early Access on March 8. This explosion in popularity can be traced in part to positive attention from streamers: Core Keeper streams are approaching 2 million views on Twitch.

The free game at the Epic Store is Demon's Tilt: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/demons-tilt
Next week, the free games will be two: City of Brass and Total War: WARHAMMER.

Steam has two new daily deals:

• The first daily deal is SuchArt: Genius Artist Simulator, still in Early Access and 30% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1293180/SuchArt_Genius_Artist_Simulator/
• The second daily deal is Day of Infamy, 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/447820/Day_of_Infamy/

There's a new Humble Bundle: the Europa Universalis IV Complete Bundle, featuring the game and up to 32 DLCs to get during the next 20 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/europa-universalis-iv-complete.

And Fanatical has launched the new Stand With Ukraine Charity Bundle, featuring 57 games plus 1 DLC: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/stand-with-ukraine-charity-bundle.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Nothing-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Empty-

GAMING NEWS

God of War Patch 1.0.9 can improve performance by up to 20% in CPU-heavy areas
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/god-of-war-patch-1-0-9-can-improve-performance-by-up-to-20-in-cpu-heavy-areas/
Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have released a new patch for the PC version of God of War. According to the release notes, Update 1.0.9 implements small object culling to help reduce the number of objects that the CPU can process. As such, it can improve performance by up to 20% in CPU-heavy areas.

New Forspoken Tech Video shows off AMD FSR & DirectStorage
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-forspoken-tech-demo-shows-off-amd-fsr-directstorage/
Luminous Productions has released a new tech video for its upcoming game, Forspoken. This video shows off some of the graphical techniques that it will be using, including AMD FSR and DirectStorage.
>> It's the game/video used for the The Verge article that Yuri posted, but that doesn't include the video itself.

Thursday news, part two:

Here's when Tiny Tina's Wonderlands unlocks in your time zone
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/tiny-tinas-wonderlands-release-time-unlock-pre-load/
The Tiny Tina's Wonderlands release time is different depending on whether you're playing on PC or console, so I've listed them both in this guide. But regardless of your choice of platform you're in for a treat if you're a Borderlands fan: Jody in his Tiny Tina's Wonderlands review puts it above Borderlands 3, although it doesn't quite hit the heights of 2.

Gnome-lovers rejoice: they'll be playable in Baldur's Gate 3
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/gnome-lovers-rejoice-theyll-be-playable-in-baldurs-gate-3/
In D&D, gnomes are objectively the best. They're like halflings with more personality and less disgusting feet. Thank goodness, then, that they are definitely going to be playable in Baldur's Gate 3, eventually.

Co-op castle escape puzzler We Were Here Forever launches in May
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/co-op-castle-escape-puzzler-we-were-here-forever-launches-in-may/
What I adamantly believe is one of the best co-op games on PC is getting a fourth game in its friendship-testing crash course on effective communication. We Were Here Forever (which I'll forgive for not being named 4ever) is arriving in May as the next in the series of co-op escape room puzzlers.

John Romero recalls the time Sierra almost bought id Software: 'I was dumbfounded'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/john-romero-recalls-the-time-sierra-almost-bought-id-software-i-was-dumbfounded/
They say hindsight is 20/20, but I'd like to think if I were a successful videogame executive in the early '90s, I would have been pretty jazzed to see an early build of id Software's Wolfenstein 3D. According to John Romero, the revolutionary first-person shooter didn't set off any sparks for Sierra On-line co-founder Ken Williams in a meeting that nearly ended with Sierra buying id.

'Netflix of games' isn't likely, says analyst
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/netflix-of-games-isnt-likely-says-analyst/
With Microsoft amassing studios for its Game Pass kingdom and many of the industry's big players chasing cloud streaming, will a "Netflix of games" ultimately come along and squash a la carte game purchasing, tying us all to subscriptions forever? Industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls is skeptical.

Souls dataminer shows why Elden Ring's asset re-use is actually awesome
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/souls-dataminer-shows-why-elden-rings-asset-re-use-is-actually-awesome/
Elden Ring: in case you haven't heard, it's the bee's knees. One of the great and unexpected pleasures I've found in the game is seeing the echoes, large and small, of the Soulsborne games that led up to this point. When Elden Ring was first revealed its re-use of assets even became a silly controversy, with some sorts rather put-out that FromSoftware might, god forbid, re-use a perfectly functional sword swing animation rather than making a whole new one.

Halo Infinite is introducing ranked requirements to combat cheaters
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/halo-infinite-is-introducing-ranked-requirements-to-combat-cheaters/
Halo Infinite will soon require you get your feet wet in casual play before diving into ranked playlists as part of its ongoing anti-cheat efforts, developer 343 Industries revealed in an anti-cheat blog post early this week.

FIFA 22 benches Maradona thanks to intractable rights dispute over his likeness
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/fifa-22-benches-maradona-thanks-to-intractable-rights-dispute-over-his-likeness/
Football: the beautiful game and also, sadly, one of the grubbiest. So much money sloshes around at the top that corruption and scandal are as much a part of football's history as Italia 90. So to the news that the likeness of the late Diego Maradona, one of the all-time greats, has now been removed from EA's FIFA 22. The reason? An intractable licensing dispute over who has the rights to profit from him.

I really hope the 7000 series processors come with an integrated GPU, otherwise Zen4 will have to bring massive gains to explain why a 16 cores chip has a 170W TDP when the 5950X, also with 16 cores, has a TDP of 105W.

Tbh even with iGPU, 65 Watt increase is a pretty big increase considering the entire SoC on the Steam Deck is 15 watts and that thing has 8 RDNA 2 CUs. So hopefully, there is a massive CPU jump in performance.

Yeah, and those are 65W more on a smaller node. Zen4 better be great.

That feeling when you finally iron most of the kinks out of a build that's been giving you hell for months. It started with that rubbing fan on my 2070 a few months ago. My fix worked well for a while, then my PC started behaving erratically in general, soon ending in my CPU shitting the bed. Since I can't really go without a CPU for months til the next gen arrives and doing so would require a new mobo anyway I decided to turn my tragedy into an opportunity and upgraded to a 5950x (on sale!) with a new case and AIO to accommodate it:

That fixed my black screen issue but introduced even more fan problems. They were pretty loud out of the box but setting some custom curves in the BIOS and software got them manageable - except for one. Now my GPU was freaking out and running full blast at the slightest provocation and wouldn't come down until I completely shut the computer down. Troubleshooting this was a nightmare and nothing I tried worked for long - not even taking my machine to a professional. To add insult to injury the freakouts were wearing out the bearings on my GPU fans all over again and now two of them were making insufferable noise! Shuddering at the thought of a 2070 going to waste in today's market and having to grossly overpay for a replacement when the next gen is just around the corner I decided pop the hood on it and take a closer look. Fortunately I held on to the two good fans of the trio that originally came with the card and used those to replace the two making noise now. This is also when I found my culprit. Apparently last time I replaced the fans I plugged the cables in backwards so that a 3 pin cable was plugged into the GPU's 4 pin port and it couldn't properly regulate itself!

Powering on my PC and hearing a calm, stable boot up after months of awful noises was a moment of serenity like I haven't felt in ages. Now hopefully my 2070 will last a good while longer and my rig is already set up for a 4080 or 90 (apart from the power supply). Let's hope it all stays fixed this time, lol.