Tuesday news, part two:

Finally, someone turned 'inventory tetris' into an entire videogame
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/finally-someone-finally-turned-inventory-tetris-into-an-entire-videogame/
You're low on ammo. Wounded. Desperate. But you made it through the level and now you can take a deep sigh of relief and prepare for the next one. Time to heal, reload your weapons, and organize your backpack so you can fit all your gear neatly inside it.
That last bit is what you do in Save Room - Organization Puzzle. That's all you do, in fact. This inventory management puzzle game strips out the shooting and monsters and danger and literally everything else but the very act of healing, reloading weapons, and making all your guns, grenades, and gear fit neatly into your grid-based backpack.

Riot wants to 'slow the pace of combat' in League of Legends
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/riot-wants-to-slow-the-pace-of-combat-in-league-of-legends/
League of Legends is a pretty fast-paced game, but Riot may be looking to tap the brakes just a little bit. In a recent Reddit thread, Riot Axes—properly known as lead gameplay designer Bryan Salvatore—said the studio is now looking into making changes "intended to slow the pace of combat."

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt proves vampires are more fun with AK-47s
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodhunt-proves-vampires-are-more-fun-with-ak-47s/
It's 2022, and there's a new battle royale on the block. I thought games had explored just about everything worth doing in the circle-shrinking genre, but then I started running up walls and drinking up civilians like juice boxes in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt. "This free-to-play battle royale is pretty darn good!" I say to my friends who, respectfully, will not download it to play with me.

Fortnite's having a fortnight of Star Wars celebrations
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/fortnites-having-a-fortnight-of-star-wars-celebrations/
A long time ago, in a metaverse far far away, a marketing no-brainer happened. May 4 has been taken over by a Star Wars celebration day, and to mark this year's event Fortnite's having a Star Wars jamboree: some of the stuff is old, like outfits, and other elements are new.

DF Direct Weekly #59: PlayStation 5 VRR, Steam Deck 40-60Hz Upgrade, 900W Next-Gen GPUs?

Playstation 5 finally gets their VRR update but as you watch the video on their experience on it, you realize how good and innovative G-sync was back in 2013 even compared to modern VRR implementations.

PS5 follows HDMI 2.1 VRR spec for it's system wide implementation which is 48hz+ while Xbox does slightly more which is 40hz+. The issue is that if a game goes below 48hz on PS5, VRR gets disabled on PS5. So you have this situation where with Elden Ring, it goes in and out of VRR range so while the experience is improved, it's still not ideal. Now both the PS5 and Xbox have their own solutions to this. On PS5, game devs will need to specifically optimize their games to go below the 48hz VRR range. VRR on PS5 also doesn't work on any PS4 games. On Xbox, you can set your output to 120hz mode and the VRR minimum VRR range goes down to like 20hz but it can have persistence blur in some games so not ideal unless you really need it.

Meanwhile G-sync in 2013: 1hz-Max refresh rate system wide... (While the module itself can go down to 1hz, typically the LCD monitors can't go below 30).

Truly the definition of "It just works"

Intel Will Finalize Advanced Chip (18A) Designs By H2 2022 Says Research Firm

https://wccftech.com/intel-will-finalize-advanced-chip-18a-designs-by-h2-2022-says-research-firm/

AMD publishes VCN4 (Video Codec Next) patches for RDNA3 GPUs, no AV1 encoding support so far

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-publishes-vcn4-video-codec-next-patches-for-rdna3-gpus-no-av1-encoding-support-so-far

That's actually kinda bad. Even Apple's M1 supports AV1 encoding. We will see if Nvidia's Lovelace will or not.

Nvidia's A100 vs AMD's MI250 benchmarks

Do you spice?

^ Is it good?

May 2022 Humble Choice games have been revealed.

• Planet Zoo
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated
• Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection (Origin key)
• If Found
• Embr
• Genesis Noir
• Surviving the Aftermath
• Spellcaster University

PLanet Zoo would be a good pick if it wasn't because of all the DLCs that plague the game. With Planet Coaster they weren't that critical because you can still build coasters and such, but a zoo game where the DLCs are the animals make them almost a must have,

The Command & Conquer remasters are also good.

AMD Next Generation Radeon RX 7000 Series ‘Navi 31, 32 and 33’ Updated GPU Variants Leaked

https://wccftech.com/amd-next-generation-radeon-rx-7000-series-navi-3132-and-33-updated-gpu-variants-leaked/

Essentially the same thing as yesterday but with some additional info

I will say that after thinking about it. If AMD did lower the their processor counts for Navi 31, it would explain the other rumour about 4080 being AD103. The way I see it is 4090 > 7900XT > 4080 ~ 7800XT etc. While we would love for crazy high core counts, least the price should in theory be more reasonable.

USB Type-C 2.1 Cables Start to Become Available for 240W Power Delivery

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-type-c-21-cables-start-to-become-available-for-240w-power-delivery

The naming convention may be yikes but the tech is nutty

It's worth posting Greymon's tweet regarding this new specs:

I'd be surprised if AMD has managed to achieve the planned performance with lower specs, unless those things clock like crazy.

I also find the numbers of chips surprising given how they're supposed to be used: Navi 31 for three 79xx cards, Navi 32 for two 78xx and one 77xx cards and Navi 33 for the rest. It looks like they're putting all their eggs in the extreme high-end, which isn't good at all for the rest of us.

C&C Remastered is awesome, but I already have it.

Skip.

Personally I think he's being a bit too optimistic with that tweet as there is now a 3072 core deficit but we will see.

If I had to guess, either they are having issues with MCM design or...

*** Puts conspiracy hat on***

Lisa and Jensen sat on a family dinner table and discussed how silly the core counts are getting and instead, discussing a duopoly. We saw this generation that Nvidia beating AMD by a small margin in Raster really isn't that bad of an issue for AMD. They upped their margins from previous generations and made plenty of profit. So the plan could be that Nvidia continues to take the crown with the 4090 but at crazy high prices like 3090 while 7900XT is only a bit slower but for a lot less price. Then their 4080 and 7800XT and below can battle it out.

Cause otherwise and assuming the rumours are true, a 4080 being on AD102 should be able to beat Navi 31. But that's not necessarily a good business move for Nvidia because that would diminish the reasons for getting a 4090/4080 Ti. Nvidia I am sure wants people to spend the big bucks for the absolute best performance. And AMD can continue to sell a lot of GPUs because GPUs will always be in high demand as long as they are competitive. And they leave their super high core count GPUs for the workstation users.