The Tuesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam has several new deals and a new range of weeklong deals:

• Coromon will be 50% off until Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1218210/Coromon/
• The Friendship Games Week 2023 features up to 90% discounts on games with co-op until Sunday, 19th: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/frogsongstudios/sale/FriendshipGamesWeek2023
• Pumpkin Jack gets a 66% discount until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1186640/Pumpkin_Jack/
• The Bloody Valentine's Day Sale features an unusual assortment of games for these days with up to 85% discounts until February 20: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/WBGames/sale/bloodyvalentines
• Publisher Wales Interactive offers its games up to 90% off until the 20th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/walesinteractive
• The RPG Maker Festival 2023 comes with up to 90% discounts until Monday, the 20th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/rpgmaker_festival_2023
• The Monster Prom franchise is on sale with up to 75% discounts until February 21st: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/beautifulglitch/sale/monsterprom
• And here's a small sample of the weeklong deals:
  • Rail Route, still in Early Access, will be 20% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1124180/Rail_Route/
  • Sakura Hime, that promotes a more direct kind of love, gets a 30% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732740/Sakura_Hime/
  • Eastshade is 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/715560/Eastshade/
  • Scythe: Digital Edition is going to be 60% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/718560/Scythe_Digital_Edition/
  • Remnants of Naezith gets a 75% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/590590/Remnants_of_Naezith/
  • And NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM Revolution (among a few other Bandai Namco games) goes on sale, 85% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/272510/NARUTO_SHIPPUDEN_Ultimate_Ninja_STORM_Revolution/

The Humble Store has two new deals:

• Capcom puts its games up to 83% off during 6 days. All the keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/capcom-publisher-sale/
• The Nacon BYOB features 46 games to choose for your own bundle during the next 6 days. When picking 3 or more, the discounts will be 85%, and all the keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/nacon-build-your-own-bundle/

Fanatical has three new bundles added for the bundlefest:

• The new bundles are: VIP Mystery Bundle, BYO Play On the Go Bundle-Bundlefest edition and Wet Dreams Double Pack.
• And there's a new contest to win bundles, with 5 winners. Learn more here: https://www.fanatical.com/en/blog/win-your-own-bundle-contest

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

The Skyrim Together team is working on a multiplayer mod for Hogwarts Legacy, and there's already a prototype
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-skyrim-together-team-is-working-on-a-multiplayer-mod-for-hogwarts-legacy-and-theres-already-a-prototype/
The team behind the Skyrim Together Reborn multiplayer mod has turned its attention to something new: HogWarp, a multiplayer mod for Hogwarts Legacy. Hogwarts Legacy is a big, sprawling game, and its setting and story—a tale of kids attending a massive, ancient magic school—is a natural fit for some sort of multiplayer component. Yet it's strictly a singleplayer game. That may not be the case forever, though. HogWarp, like Skyrim Together, is designed to give players the ability to congregate and play together in the famed school of magic. And it's not just an idle dream: Even though Hogwarts Legacy only went into full release on Friday, the Together Team has already shared a video of a test build in action. There's not a whole lot going on, but that's definitely two students running around in one Hogwarts.
>> The video is a bit more than 1 minute long.

GAMING NEWS

Lies of P, Souls-like “Pinocchio” game, gets an official gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/lies-of-p-souls-like-pinocchio-game-gets-an-official-gameplay-trailer/
IGN has shared the official gameplay trailer for the upcoming Dark Souls-inspired “Pinocchio” game, Lies of P. In this game, players will assume the role of Pinocchio and will have to fight through everything in their path to find Geppetto.

The Witcher 3 Next-Gen PC Performance Hotfix available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-witcher-3-next-gen-pc-performance-hotfix-available-for-download/
CD Projekt RED has just released a new PC Hotfix for The Witcher 3 Next-Gen. According to the team, this Hotfix primarily addresses the performance issues that appeared after Patch 4.01. Other than that, this Hotfix does not bring any additional improvements of tweaks.

Atomic Heart gets a live-action trailer with Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/atomic-heart-gets-a-live-action-trailer-with-supernaturals-jensen-ackles/
Focus Entertainment has just released a hilarious live-action trailer for Atomic Heart, featuring Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles. This trailer even pokes fun at Hogwarts Legacy, the wizard game that came out last week.

The Tuesday news, the sequel:

Minecraft reveals the big, floppy Sniffer mob coming in version 1.20
https://www.pcgamer.com/minecraft-reveals-the-big-floppy-sniffer-mob-coming-in-version-120/
After announcing that archeology is in for the next update, Mojang is back today with another Minecraft 1.20 reveal and this time it's the big ol' Sniffer mob. We already knew it was coming, of course, after it won the community mob vote last summer, but this is the first time we're seeing what its in-game model will look like and I think the initial hype for this big mossy buddy is definitely going to continue.

The Witcher 3's next-gen vaginas are going away
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-witcher-3s-next-gen-vaginas-are-going-away/
CD Projekt has confirmed that the addition of detailed vaginas to female monsters was in fact a mistake, and will be removed.
There was already plenty of nudity in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but the next-gen update that arrived in December upped the ante somewhat. As we saw last week, both the Crones of Crookback Bog (in their human forms) and the vampiric bruxae that appear in the Blood and Wine expansion were given significantly changed pubic areas in the update, taking them from a "Barbie doll situation" to the full monty, complete with visible labia and nicely coiffed public hair.
>> They'll remove them, but we all know that it won't even be a day before someone makes a mod that brings them back.

You've got 3 days left to play one of the best demos on Steam right now
https://www.pcgamer.com/youve-got-3-days-left-to-play-one-of-the-best-demos-on-steam-right-now/
Steam Next Fest, the biannual event that scatterguns hundreds of game demos into your eager face for a week before rudely yoinking them away again, has come to an end. That's a bummer if you missed out on the chance to try the demo of a great game, but the good news is that a few free demos aren't expiring just because the Fest is over.
That includes the demo for a game you absolutely shouldn't miss: Shadows of Doubt from ColePowered Games. The demo will remain live for a few more days.
>> Two days, the article was posted yesterday. Oh, and the same is true for the Dark and Darker alpha.

Hogwarts Legacy players discover a hugely OP secret weapon: cabbage
https://www.pcgamer.com/hogwarts-legacy-players-discover-a-hugely-op-secret-weapon-cabbage/
Hogwarts Legacy is a game about going to school to learn to cast magical spells so you can commit horrific acts of violence at a rate not often seen in tween-oriented coming-of-age tales. But if you really want to kick ass, you might want to forgo magic in favor of something a little more vegan.

This desolate action-RPG about a city at the end of time is 11 years in the making
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-desolate-action-rpg-11-years-in-the-making-about-a-city-at-the-end-of-time-is-doing-incredible-things-with-pixel-art/
Like many small-studio projects before it, Radio the Universe is one of those strikingly gorgeous, long-in-development independent games you catch tantalizing glimpses of on Twitter or Reddit and just need to know more about. The top-down, almost Hyper Light Drifter-adjacent adventure was at one point slated for a 2020 release while, as reported by Destructoid and, uh, us, the game has been in the works in some form since at least 2012. But after this long wait it's finally playable by the general public for the first time thanks to a Steam Next Fest demo.
>> Since it's another of ther Steam Next Fest demos, you may only have a couple more days to play it.

This city builder lets you build a civilisation on the back of a space whale with its own 'desires and agenda'
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-city-builder-lets-you-build-a-civilisation-on-the-back-of-a-space-whale-with-its-own-desires-and-agenda/
The cosmos, despite its infinite beauty and wonder, can be an uncaring and deadly place, which we have chosen to explore by cramming men and women into rocket-propelled tubes, inside which they uncomfortably bob around as their bones and muscles deteriorate. The space-faring people of Beyond These Stars, an upcoming city builder from the creators of Before We Leave and publisher Hooded Horse, have a better idea: they've set up shop on a huge space whale known as Kewa.

WoW player hits level cap without even arriving at the starting area in 200-day grinding ordeal
https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-player-hits-level-cap-without-even-arriving-at-the-starting-area-in-200-day-grinding-ordeal/
It's official: Reaching World of Warcraft's level cap of 70 without leaving its tutorial zone is now old-hat. Instead, real dedicated zen masters hit maximum strength without even arriving there, making use of WoW's pet battle mechanic to slowly level up without ever leaving the confines of the boat that takes you to the game's starting area. That's what a player called Cheatcho did, who documented his remarkably stationery journey to level 70 in a recent Reddit thread (via GamesRadar).

Kevin Conroy found recording the Arkham games frustrating: '‘What the f**k do they want me to say?’
https://www.pcgamer.com/kevin-conroy-found-recording-the-arkham-games-frustrating-what-the-fk-do-they-want-me-to-say/
An official Warner Bros. interview has resurfaced featuring the late Kevin Conroy, the actor best-known for his lengthy stints as the voice of Batman in the animated series and Arkham games, who died in November last year. While the topic under discussion is mostly his time on the animated show (and series co-creator Bruce Timm is also in there), Conroy at one point begins discussing his time on the Arkham games and not, it must be said, in a wholly positive light.

Frictional has a new 'SOMA-style' game quietly in the works
https://www.pcgamer.com/frictional-has-a-new-soma-style-game-quietly-in-the-works/
Frictional has been busy scaring the wits out of us with Amnesia in recent years, but the studio hasn't forgotten SOMA, its rather excellent philosophical robo-horror from 2015. Although the Swedish developer is hard at work on Amnesia: the Bunker, the game's creative lead Fredrik Olsson recently let slip in a chat with DualShockers that a project in SOMA's heady mould is quietly in the works at the studio.

Motherboard Shipments In 2022 Dropped Close To Ten Million Units

https://wccftech.com/motherboard-shipments-in-2022-dropped-close-to-ten-million-units/

Not surprising as PC market is in for a big correction

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Rumored To Feature AD107 GPU: 3072 Cores, 8 GB Memory & 115W

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-rumored-to-feature-ad107-gpu-3072-cores-8-gb-memory-115w/

While I am sure the performance will be better than 3060 if not 3060 Ti, it never feels right to buy a product that is this low spec

Game tweaking tool can enable DLAA support in DLSS-compatible games

https://videocardz.com/newz/game-tweaking-tool-can-enable-dlaa-support-in-dlss-compatible-games

Very cool as DLAA is worlds better as an anti aliasing solution than TAA in my experience

Most Secure Browser? Chrome vs Firefox vs Edge

Kind of an interesting test. They created a script that auto opened 300 known virus urls and saw the detection rates of each browser to see who blocked the site and who stopped the virus from fully being downloaded. The one key difference between Firefox vs Chrome and Edge is that Firefox downloads the virus where as Chrome/Edge asks whether or not you want to download the file if they are not sure. The difference between Chrome and Edge is that Chrome downloaded some of the virus files anyway. Also both Firefox and Chrome uses Googles Safe Browsing tech while Edge uses Microsofts Windows Defender/SmartScreen.

That 128-bit bus width for the memory won't do any good for the 4060 at anything above 1080p.

On another note, and since I posted the article about its problems, Samsung has released a fix for the 990, more or less

Samsung: Firmware Update for the 990 Pro SSD Is On the Way (updated: firmware available)
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-firmware-update-for-the-990-pro-ssd-is-on-the-way.html
Samsung's SSD health issues continue to plague users with severe rapid health declines soon after installation, with some users losing up to 64% of their SSD's health after just 2 TB of data was written.

(...)

Update: Samsung has come out with a firmware update aimed at preserving the longevity of its 990 Pro SSDs. Despite this, DavidB, a moderator from the German Samsung forum, highlights that the smart values have not been reset. The exact reason behind the accelerated drop in lifespan is unclear and it remains to be seen if the firmware can effectively reverse any erroneous wear.

Yeah. The 128-bit bus will hold back fillrate, it's got significantly less bandwidth than a 3060.

But... It is only a rumor at this stage. Grain of salt and all that.

It's only a rumor, yes, but given that the 4070Ti has a 192-bit bus, it doesn't look all too well for the 4060 and even the 4060Ti.

It should beat at least the 3060Ti. I'm sure it will do so in 1080p, but I fear the 3060Ti will creep closer and closer the higher the resolution gets unless it's 6GB VRAM buffer runs out beforehand. And in games where 8GB are not enough, the 12GB of the 3060 could actually end up more important than the extra horsepower.

The AD107 of the 4060 is fundamentally a mobile GPU, being also used on the mobile 4060 and 4050. This also brings me to the one great quality of the card: the very low power draw for this day and age of just 115W TGP, which is great to see. You have to go back all the way to 2009 to the GeForce 9600 GT to find a xx6x card with a lower TDP (95W), though the 1660, 1060 and 960 are very close with their 120W TDP.

I wish the browser test had also included Opera, as the latter also includes it's own set of security features.

I felt like Nvidia forgot about me, the moment they fucked me with Wolfenstein TNC "game ready" driver, and then followed up 3 times in a row to fuck me over with Supreme Commander 1-2 (two old games where their then latest drivers fucked me for playing those two games, like how do you do that?), and then eventually leave me in the dust with DLSS, and all I'm left with is shitty hairworks tech that was also forgotten about and never really refined, so I'm the one with the card that got the shitty unrefined tech, while the last two gens have seen DLSS be refined 4 times now, and newer tech coming out. 

I also feel like it's a general business practice for most corps on the planet to willingly forget what they just released a year later, be it via planned obsolesce or aiming for the bigger pie in the sky. The only ppl I know on the planet who care about what came before or what is still around today, are modders and retro gamers (restorists too).

I actually had to look up as to how bad this "boycott" had gotten, and hooooooo boy, did this become such a nasty clusterfuck fast, from Era being rabid and insane, to an idiotic coder making a tool that lists Twitch streamer who have both played and Streamed the game, being in public view for everyone, just to act as a tool to use against those who bought the damn game.

Like yeah, I get it from a viewpoint of someone who doesn't like anti-SJW's, but c'mon man, this is the SJW's purely going insano mode against EVERYONE, even themselves over this one sodding game lol, there is no way on this earth can someone side with the SJW's and claim anti-SJW's are on the same level (me, someone who despises SJW's, because I know it's a power move, none of these ppl actually care enough to make a proper movement that isn't fascist or totalitarian based, to make for a positive change, and I say this as someone who is a centrist, someone who likes to look at both sides of the same coin). 

Latest Adrenalin drivers when installed on RX 6000 series graphics cards, supposedly can change bios settings leading to; in a few cases (on Twitter) corrupt Windows. Careful peeps..

Be careful when you install the latest Adrenalin 23.2.1. Backup your data!#AMD #Driver https://t.co/dOVZSth7OQ

— CapFrameX (@CapFrameX) February 15, 2023

Same update affects the AyaNEO's with 6800u in restricting VRAM access to 0.5GB - https://videocardz.com/newz/amds-lastest-gpu-drivers-may-limit-vram-on-ryzen-6800u-powered-ayaneo-consoles-to-0-5-gb

Radeon group just can't stop dropping the L's. But seriously.. what's going on AMD's GPU department?