There are lots of things to criticize about this rumor, but that's not one of them. The rumor says that the raster performance will be similar, while the RT one "is expected to be a much larger increase than the rasterization increase". How big will it be? No f*cking idea.

The Navi 23 was used in the 6600XT. Considering having just 8GB of VRAM and smaller PCIe x8 instead of x16 just like the 6600XT, I expect Navi 33 to be more of a 7600XT while the 7700XT would fall be made out of the Navi 32.

Considering it's performance noted above, it makes you wonder just how big the entry-level models gonna be... and how powerful everything above is going to end up.

Could be a small jump for all we know, but if it's not on par or greater than nvidia's, then AMD is right back to being last again and still having to catch up, we've been at this shindig for years now and it's getting mega tiresome to watch happen.

All I've been getting in terms of messages from AMD is that they either don't have the smartest lads working for them, they let greed make for bad decisions or they just don't know wtf to really aim for, because they keep falling behind. 

We know Intel is going to suffer a bit in their GPU dept, thanks to a certain someone that moved away from AMD, but that's on Intel to correct, not AMD.

Big companies like Square-Enix usually lose hundreds of old source code files or old data, this is the result for being utter carelessness when they already began to join the retro party business, i can't honestly comment on this situation in final conclusion, i'm always waiting for the developers statement.

Since DF pointed out the Switch version is a lucky platform, handheld mode boosts performance thanks to image quality for tuning down to 720p. Yeah, awkward.

nVidia and AMD have multiple teams developing GPU's... AMD has one team which definitely stands out compared to the rest... And nVidia has one team which is pretty average.

Each team leapfrogs the other in terms of release, but also builds parts based on the prior teams work unless they are building a new design from the ground up...
For example... The team that built the original Radeon 2900 was pretty bad, but the teams that refined that architecture for the Radeon 4870 and 5870 was incredible.

It also depends on the resources that AMD allocates... And arguably right now, AMD shouldn't have any budget excuses.

Normally I have always bought AMD GPU's for the price/performance benefits... Which is currently out the window... And I always bought Intel CPU's for performance/power benefits... Which is also out the window.
Honestly the entire market is a mess and it's going to be that way for some time.

I was watching a show called Billions and a hacker turned on his computer...

Least they put in to effort to stick the RAM in?

The Monday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

GOG has three new flash deals and a new weeklong sale:

• The first flash deal is Breathedge, 40% off until Wednesday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/breathedge
• XIII is going to be 75% off during the next 46 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/xiii
• The last flash deal is Stellaris, 77% off until the 13th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/stellaris
• The Weekly Sale features games with great soundtracks up to 90% off: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220411_weekly_sale

There are new deals at Humble:

• There's a new Humble Bundle: the Game Night! by Asmodee bundle, featuring up to 19 to get during the next 10 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/game-night-asmodee
• The Humble Store has three new sales:
  • The Comic Games Sale features up to 90% discounts during the next 4 days. There are keys for Steam and GOG: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/comic-games-sale/
  • The Indie Hits Sale also features up to 90% discounts for the next 4 days. There are keys for Steam and GOG: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/indie-hits-sale/
  • And the WB Games Publisher Sale also brings up to 90% discounts for 4 days. The keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/wb-games-publisher-sale/

And Fanatical has new deals:

• The new Star Deal is MONSTER HUNTER RISE, 45% off during the next 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/monster-hunter-rise
• The Easter Eggstravaganza Sale has begun. You'll find lots of deals from publishers like Capcom, Devolver Digital, THQ Nordic, etc.
• And there's a new bundle: the Mystery Egg Bundle, with up to 10 unknown games to get (here's a list of all the games that you could win): https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/mystery-egg-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Nothing-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Call of Juarez & Medal of Honor Allied Assault get AI-enhanced HD Texture Packs
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/call-of-juarez-medal-of-honor-allied-assault-get-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-packs/
Modder ‘Kuzja80’ has released an AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for Call of Juarez. Similarly, modder ‘Gabriel Lichacz’ released an HD Texture Pack for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
Since these packs use AI techniques, they manage to retain the art style of the original textures. As such, they are perfect for those that want to replay these classic games.

Here is how you can play Halo Infinite in third-person mode
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/here-is-how-you-can-play-halo-infinite-in-third-person-mode/
Now here is something that passed under our radar. Halo Infinite is the latest part in the Halo series and as you may already know, it uses a first-person perspective. However, it appears that you can experience this Halo game in third-person mode via this amazing mod.
What’s really great here is that the game looks amazing in third-person mode. This shouldn’t surprise us of course. After all, 343 Industries has created proper third-person moves for the game’s MP mode.

The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time PC Port, Open Ocarina, now supports 60fps
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time-pc-port-60fps/
Last month, we informed you about the first unofficial PC port of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, called Open Ocarina. And today, we are happy to report that this port has an experimental mode that allows the game to run at 60fps.
As Blake told us, the code for running the game at 60fps is available in the dev branch for anyone to compile and play with. This mode will remain in this experimental mode for 2-3 weeks, and then will be added to the main branch.

GAMING NEWS

Orcs Must Die 3: Tipping the Scales DLC slithers out today
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/orcs-must-die-3-tipping-the-scales-dlc-slithers-out-today/
Lay down your spike traps and prepare for a new type of horde, as Orcs Must Die 3's DLC Tipping the Scales pours angry lizard men all over your PC.
Tipping the Scales introduces a whole new race to the comical tower defence. The Tuatara are a colourful reptilian race whose hardened scales apparently limit the amount of damage they take. Within the Tuatara's cold-blooded throngs is a new enemy type, the Tuatara Assassin, who can sneakily avoid your traps.

Halo Infinite season 2 introduces another 'Battle Pass that never expires'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/halo-infinite-season-2-introduces-the-battle-pass-that-never-expires/
There's been plenty of grumbling about Halo Infinite recently, with some of its biggest streamers turning to other games, and 343 is looking to regain some of the game's early momentum with a fan-pleasing season 2 refresh. The most eye-catching element of Halo's pass by far is the fact that it will never expire, an unusual tactic that was announced last year.

The Quarry has a 'movie mode' so you can watch it instead of playing it
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-quarry-has-a-movie-mode-so-you-can-watch-it-instead-of-playing-it/
The Quarry, announced in March by developer Supermassive, is essentially a teen slasher flick made into a narrative adventure: A group of counsellors decides to have a party on the last night of camp, and hoo boy do things go wrong. Classic teen behavior. The cliched horror flick vibe is further nailed down by some fun casting, including David Arquette (Scream), Lance Henriksen (Alien), Lin Shaye (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Ted Raimi (Creepshow).
Each of the nine counsellors in the game is playable, and can be saved or killed off depending on the choices you make, how you develop their relationships with other characters in the game, and how you react when things go sideways. But if you're a horror fan who'd rather just kick back and enjoy the show, a new IGN preview reveals that The Quarry has a "movie mode" option that will let you do just that.

Old School Runescape mod fired in 2018 for stealing player gold wins unfair dismissal complaint
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/old-school-runescape-mod-fired-in-2018-for-stealing-player-gold-wins-unfair-dismissal-complaint/
In 2018, Jagex fired Old School Runescape moderator Jed Sanderson—known to the community as Mod Jed—for "gross misuse of moderator privileges": Specifically, that he was stealing huge amounts of in-game currency from other players. But the Cambridge Employment Tribunal in the UK has determined that Sanderson was unfairly terminated, and awarded him damages as a result.

This Unreal Engine 5 Superman flight demo blew up on Twitter, and now its creator wants to make it an actual game
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/unreal-engine-5-superman-flight-matrix-city/
Unreal Engine 5 left early access this week (opens in new tab), and while I was struggling to make an island with a cinderblock on it (the next Dear Esther?), game developer Volod was putting together something much more obviously fun—a little superhero experiment that was so well received, they now want to make it into an actual game.

Monday news, part two:

Final Fantasy 14 players can't decide how to eat an egg
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/final-fantasy-14-players-cant-decide-how-to-eat-an-egg/
Mrhappy1227, a popular Final Fantasy 14 creator, has a point. The MMO is soon getting a new Eat Egg emote—an emote that looks impractical, maybe even disturbing, if you've never considered the possibility someone could eat an egg wrong. All we have to go on right now is a screenshot of a Lalafell holding what looks like a hardboiled egg with half of its shell left on. What happens next is anyone's guess, but if the animation for eating a regular egg is any indication, that entire thing is going inside their mouth, shell and all.

A new Subnautica game is in development
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/a-new-subnautica-game-is-in-development/
The 2018 sci-fi survival game Subnautica is brilliant, and the 2021 followup, Subnautica: Below Zero, is a worthy successor; both games were also significant commercial successes. In light of that, it should come as no surprise that developer Unknown Worlds has got a new Subnautica game in development.

There's a fix for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga insisting on a 60 fps cap
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/theres-a-fix-for-lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-insisting-on-a-60-fps-cap/
Thanks to PCGamesN, we now have a fix for one of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's few graphical hiccups: its stubborn insistence on defaulting to a 60 fps cap on launching the game or Alt+Tabbing out, no matter what you set in the in-game menus.

Pile up cards to build villages in Stacklands
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/pile-up-cards-to-build-villages-in-stacklands/
The team of absolute game machines over at Sokpop Collective have a new hit, at least to me, in Stacklands—it's city building by way of cards. By stacking cards you build up a cute little village, cutting logs, quarrying stone, growing food, and building the houses and sheds (oh, so many sheds) to keep it all. As you expand, you can sell excess resources for money, which you then exchange for packs of new, random cards to use for further growth.

Shotgun some cosmic horrors in Forgive Me Father
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/shotgun-some-cosmic-horrors-in-forgive-me-father/
A dark retro-FPS in a comic-book inflected world, we've had our eyes on Forgive Me Father (opens in new tab) for a while now, and it's finally out. After a journey in the dreamlands of early access, Forgive Me Father just released this week. Following the loose story of some main characters investigating a predictably fish-and-tentacle-y cult, Forgive Me Father mostly has you chewing up lots of monsters and spitting them out... if you're pretty good at retro-style shooting.

Kingdom Hearts 4 revealed at series anniversary event
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/kingdom-hearts-4-revealed-at-series-anniversary-event/
The fashion king of Square Enix, Tetsuya Nomura seems to be at it again: Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced at a special event celebrating the series' 20th anniversary.
>> twintail made a thread about it. Oh! And... could that be an AT-ST?

Dungeon crawler Demeo brings monster hordes to PC with a goofy '80s trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dungeon-crawler-demeo-brings-monster-hordes-to-pc-with-a-goofy-80s-trailer/
One of the games we wanted you to keep your eye on from the last Steam Next Fest was Demeo, a dungeon crawler first made for VR and now released for regular-screen PCs. Demeo: PC Edition has the same stuff as the VR edition, and those who own the VR version can play cross-platform with the PC edition, so if your buddies already play there you can just jump in.

Warframe's Angels of the Zariman expansion launches April 27
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/warframes-angels-of-the-zariman-expansion-launches-april-27/
Digital Extremes revealed the release date of Warframe's latest expansion, Angels of the Zariman, in a new trailer and blog post. The update will go live on April 27.

Looks like Flood Firefight is coming to Halo MCC this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/looks-like-flood-firefight-is-coming-to-halo-mcc-this-week/
The developers at 343 Industries look to be teasing cooperative wave-survival mode Flood Firefight for this week. This new incarnation of the wave-based survival mode would let players take on hordes of the zombie-like Flood, rather than the alien Covenant.

RimWorld's Australian ban to be reviewed by Classification Board
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/rimworlds-australian-ban-to-be-reviewed-by-classification-board/
The Australian Classification Board will review its ban on RimWorld later this month, the board has announced. In late February the ACB served RimWorld a 'Refused Classification' rating, meaning it can no longer be sold in Australia. After nine years of availability on Steam, the colony sim was region blocked in Australia in early March.

Here's an RTS where you program your units with JavaScript
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/heres-an-rts-where-you-program-your-units-with-javascript/
Screeps: Arena is an RTS all about programming. Quite literally: You don't control anything once the match starts, you just hope that the orders you planned out beforehand are good enough.

Weird West's first patch makes it a whole lot easier to sell trash
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/weird-wests-first-patch-makes-it-a-whole-lot-easier-to-sell-trash/
Weird West is the kind of immersive sim that wears the genre's RPG roots on its sleeve—though in this case the sleeve happens to belong to a duster that's also stained with trail dirt and zombie guts. It's a supernatural western that requires creative problem-solving, with stealth and climbing onto a rooftop from a barrel both options as valid as slapping leather and letting bullets fly, but it's also a game where after encounters you take your inventory to a merchant and sell all the guns and junk you looted.

What... what have they connectect to the board power?

Next-Gen flagship GPU rumors: NVIDIA “Ada” GA102 with 21 Gbps memory, AMD’s “RDNA3” Navi 31 with 7 chiplets, Intel “Battlemage” with 20480 cores

https://videocardz.com/newz/next-gen-flagship-gpu-rumors-nvidia-ada-ga102-with-21-gbps-memory-amds-rdna3-navi-31-with-7-chiplets-intel-battlemage-with-20480-cores

Of course, it's impossible to tell how these GPUs will perform until they release. But if it is 2x GA102 and 2.5X Navi 21, then RDNA 3 should win in Raster assuming GA102 is the best 3090Ti and Navi 21 is the best 6900XT. But that would also be pretty bad for Ray Tracing as 2.5x Navi 21 won't get anywhere close to 2x GA102.

The other interesting thing will be 96MB of L2 Cache on Lovelace vs 256mb/512mb of Infinity Cache (L3) on RDNA 3. The L2 should in theory be much higher bandwidth but you won't have that abundance of cache at L3 that RDNA 3 does.

AMD Speedruns Destruction of Goodwill (R5 4500 CPU Review)

Late, Slow, No Gen 4. Better to try and find a cheap 3000 series CPU than this junk.


Intel Arc A370M is Up to 90% Slower than AMD’s Radeon RX 6500M in Gaming Workloads

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/intel-arc-a370m-is-up-to-90-slower-than-amds-radeon-rx-6500m-in-gaming-workloads/

Late and slow. Least people that can't get Lovelace or RDNA 3 will have a third option...

Cool flagship instead of fusion reactor: the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti turns the efficiency list upside down with a 300-watt throttle and beats the Radeons | igor'sLAB

https://www.igorslab.de/en/cooler-breaker-station-fusion-reactor-when-the-geforce-rtx-3090-ti-with-300-watt-choke-sets-the-efficiency-list-on-its-head-and-beats-the-radeons/

He did only benchmark this at 4k where Nvidia is at their strongest. At 1440p or 1080p, I am sure 6900XT would have taken some wins against the 300 Watt limit.

Sunsetting the Bethesda.net Launcher & Migrating to Steam [UPDATED]

https://bethesda.net/en/article/2RXxG1y000NWupPalzLblG/sunsetting-the-bethesda-net-launcher-and-migrating-to-steam

"Q: How will I play my games?