Also here's the full PC requirements for Spiderman remastered:

As usual, Nvidia leads the way with Ray Tracing and with DLSS implementation, it only gets better!

Well, I met the 1080p@60fps recommended specs... but I game on a 1440p monitor. Well, the extra power from my 1070 over the listed 1060 should allow me to achieve that with some details lowerd a bit more.

Not that I'll get it at launch, tho. There's plenty of time to upgrade before I get it (if I get it).

I should be fine running it on high/very high with my 1080ti tbh. Not really fussed about RT stuff, and I don't have access to DLSS, but it would have been nice to see them add FSR, but it's not biggie, as I'm more interested in the higher LoD's.

Hopefully Greenmangaming or other sites will have a discount cause otherwise, I am not gonna pay full price for Spiderman Remastered. If I remember correctly, in normal "4k RT" mode on PS5, the Ray Tracing gets rendered in 1080p while in performance mode, the Ray Tracing gets rendered in sub 720p. Hopefully Sony will allow us to change that and have the Ray Tracing be rendered at Native resolution.

I think outside of Final Fantasy games, I'll probably just wait for the PC ports of Playstation games at this point before buying them.

So weirdly enough, it's been over a week and I can still play Age of Empires IV despite GreenManGaming giving me a refund...

Guess I got a free game? loll

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Stray is already Annapurna's biggest launch ever
https://www.pcgamer.com/stray-is-already-annapurnas-biggest-launch-ever/
Unless you've been unplugged from the internet for the past few days, you've probably noticed that pretty much everybody loves Stray, an adventure game starring a cat from a small outfit called BlueTwelve Studio. We gave it a glowing 82% in our review, calling it "a sparkling feline adventure that always lands on its feet."
Stray's launch appears to be landing on its feet too. As noticed by Benji-Sales on Twitter, Stray is already the biggest launch ever for boutique publisher Annapurna Interactive. Stray garnered nearly 63,000 concurrent players on its first day on Steam.

This week at the Epic Store they have two giveaways:

• Tannenberg: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/tannenberg
• And for those that log into Shop Titans and manage to reach level 8 before the 28th, they'll get a series of rewards. Know more here: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/shop-titans

And next week, the free game will be Lawn Mowing Simulator.

GOG has two new sales:

• There is a Hack'nSlash Sale with up to 90% discounts during 3 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220720_hack_n_slash
• And, to celebrate the launch of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine on the store, there's a Special Warhammer Sale featuring up to 75% discounts until July 27: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220720_warhammer_sale

Steam has two new deals:

• The new daily deal is Blade Assault, 65% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367300/Blade_Assault/
• And Death and Taxes, that has a demo, will be 70% off until July 27: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1166290/Death_and_Taxes/

The Humble Store has a Focus Home Publisher Sale, with up to 85% discounts during the next 6 days. The keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/focus-home-pub-sale/

Finally, there's Fanatical, with three new deals:

• The Star Deal is the Star Wars Collection (with 14 games), 80% off during 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/star-wars-collection
• The former is part of a Disney Interactive Sale ,with up to 79% discounts during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/disney-interactive
• And the BYO Showcase Bundle comes with 16 titles to choose for your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-showcase-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

LAA 4GB Memory Patches released for Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 5 and more
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/laa-4gb-memory-patches-released-for-doom-3-half-life-2-resident-evil-5-and-more/
Daniel Pistelli has released LAA 4GB memory patches/mods for a number of games. As such, we’ve decided to collect most of them and share them in one post.
(...)
According to the modder, these patches should allow for smoother gameplay, faster loading times, better fps and less frequent crashes. Naturally, owners of low-tier/mid-tier PC systems will, theoretically, see benefits from these patches. After all, high-end PC systems can simply brute force through these games.
>> The other games listed are STALKER: Call of Pripyat, The Sims 2, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Manhunt, Payday 2, and Hitman Absolution.

Doom 3 Essential HD Pack gives id Software’s horror game the remastered treatment
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/doom-3-essential-hd-pack-give-id-softwares-horror-game-the-remastered-treatment/
H3llBaron has released a must-have HD collection pack for id Software’s Doom horror game, Doom 3. This pack includes numerous mods, as well as high-quality textures, aiming to give Doom 3 the remastered treatment it deserves.
Going into more details, Doom 3 Essential HD Pack includes and fixes the AI upscale pack by darklord34, and merges it with Monoxead and Wulfen textures. Moreover, it reworks several HD textures to properly match original ones. Furthermore, it adds cubemap reflections for paintings, blood and weapons.

GAMING NEWS

FIFA 23 will be current-gen on PC, will support crossplay
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/fifa-23-will-be-current-gen-on-pc-will-support-crossplay/
EA Sports has revealed that FIFA 23 on PC will be finally on par with the current-gen console version. Yeap, contrary to what 2K Games is currently doing, EA Sports will finally bring the current-gen console version of its soccer game to the PC. Moreover, the game will support crossplay between PC and current-gen consoles.
>> About time! Here are the requirements.

Thursday news, part two:

No NFTs in Minecraft, Mojang says
https://www.pcgamer.com/no-nfts-in-minecraft-mojang-says/
Mojang has drawn a line in the sand against NFTs in Minecraft, saying in an update posted today that NFT integration with the game is "generally not something we will support or allow."
The update begins with a quick rundown of what NFTs are, including a note about their extreme volatility, before laying out the current policies on Minecraft servers. The overall goal of those policies, Mojang said, is "to ensure that Minecraft remains a community where everyone has access to the same content." NFTs, on the other hand, are specifically designed to "create models of scarcity and exclusion," which obviously conflicts with that principle. And so, they're out.

This typing sim from hell has you writing buzzword-filled emails for eternity
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-typing-sim-from-hell-has-you-writing-buzzword-filled-emails-for-eternity/
(...)
Mondays: A Sisyphean Typing Game is a free-to-play typing sim that has you copy randomly generated intercompany emails packed with meaningless buzzwords. To demonstrate the fruitlessness of your tasks, each letter you type pushes a massive boulder a tiny fraction up a hill that only grows steeper. Get a letter wrong and there's no backspace—you immediately roll back down the hill with your boulder and have to start again. Rise and grind.

Rockstar posts hundreds of new job listings and we bet they're for Grand Theft Auto 6
https://www.pcgamer.com/rockstar-posts-hundreds-of-new-job-listings-and-we-bet-theyre-for-grand-theft-auto-6/
You've probably heard that Rockstar is working on "a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series," which until we get a proper and official title we are calling Grand Theft Auto 6. We expect that the release is still a long way off, optimistically 2024, and maybe even further down the road for PC players. But work on the project appears to be spinning up in earnest, because Rockstar is very suddenly looking to hire a small city of people.

EVE Online's most notorious player has quit the game
https://www.pcgamer.com/eve-onlines-most-notorious-player-has-quit-the-game/
The Mittani, a legendary and polarizing figure in the sprawling sci-fi MMO EVE Online, is reportedly stepping down from his positions as CEO of the GoonWaffe corporation and executor of the Goonswarm Federation, in-game organisations (although in EVE, the line between the game and real life is blurred) that control a significant portion of in-game space. The resignation comes amidst allegations that the Mittani failed to adequately address persistent sexual harassment and misconduct in the organization.
>> For most of us, this story isn't relevant or important, but for EVE Online players it most definitely is.

WoW Classic's Wrath of the Lich King will let you play as a Death Knight from the off
https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-classics-wrath-of-the-lich-king-will-let-you-play-as-a-death-knight-from-the-off/
The Wrath of the Lich King will soon be launching for World of Warcraft Classic, which is a big deal because this expansion arguably marked WoW's greatest era. Blizzard has previously said that, with this expansion, the studio would be moving away from the 'no changes' principle WoW Classic had initially begun with towards 'some changes' in the best interests of players and with hindsight.

Neopets has been hacked and data for almost 69M accounts appears to be up for sale
https://www.pcgamer.com/neopets-hacked/
Neopets, a popular virtual pet-keeping browser game born of the late '90s, has been victim of a data breach. Hackers claiming to be behind the attack say they have personal account info of more than 69 million members, along with a bunch of the site's source code, and are willing to sell the data off for a fee.
>> Scumbags.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060M desktop & mobile hybrid graphics card has been tested

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060m-desktop-mobile-hybrid-graphics-card-has-been-tested

"When the GPU shortage hit the hardest, Chinese OEMs came up with an idea to sell laptop GPUs as desktop models."

Considering the Desktop 3060 has a tdp of 170 watts, these are very good results tbh. Of course, you do get half the vram for the laptop version even if they are selling it as a desktop however you do get a higher core count in the 3060M but that's still power limited. It goes to show how efficient Ampere can be when targeting performance per watt instead of pushing it to the brink.

Intel Core i5-13600K 14-core CPU is almost as fast as Ryzen 9 5950X in leaked Geekbench mulit-core test

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-i5-13600k-14-core-cpu-is-almost-as-fast-as-ryzen-9-5950x-in-leaked-geekbench-mulit-core-test

As usual with ES samples, take it with a grain of salt.

Stray PS5 vs PS4/PC: A Superb 4K 60FPS Rendition on PS5 - But What’s Up With PC?

Shader complication stutters returns on PC as usual with UE games. PC mainly gets higher shadows and resolution. Pretty lame we are still seeing the UE stuttering issue and with more developers than ever going to UE5, hopefully there will be a fix otherwise it's gonna get pretty annoying to play UE5 titles on hardware that's obviously far more capable than consoles. All platforms do have an odd auto saving hitch as well but PC seems to get the short end of the straw where we get both UE stutter + auto saving stutter.

Intel Arc A770 flagship GPU demoed with 2.5 GHz clock and 190W GPU power, OC up to 285W

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arc-a770-flagship-gpu-demoed-with-2-5-ghz-clock-and-190w-gpu-power-oc-up-to-285w

6800XT power usage while presumably sub 3060 Ti performance. But supposedly, their pricing will be very competitive.

Hey, it worked for me. I waited after HZD came out and then a bit after Days Gone released, managed to get both for the price of £50 and to me that was a pretty solid deal. 

These days I don't really see much point in me paying £50-60 per game, when indies exist and tend to offer more content-wise over time and cost me like £15-30 a pop, which is much more affordable for me. 

That 13600K looks like it will be a beast. A hot beast, for sure, but one that will probably be affordable to the vast majority. AMD's 7600X better be good.