True. Thats why people keep coming back to the game all these years. The new update is nice though as CS Go was looking fairly dated and has been for years. And now has (mostly) been brought to moderns standards, with Valves usual attention to detail and quite innovative ideas like dynamic smokes that will change the dynamics of the game.

Plus you can bet a lot of sweaty players will just set everything to low, to get the most FPS anways lol.

Ok, I haven't found many hardware news today, but a couple of them are interesting:

KIOXIA Unveils Next-Gen Enterprise PCIe Gen 5 SSDs With 2nd Gen XL-FLASH MLC, Up To 13.5 GB/s Transfer Speed
https://wccftech.com/kioxia-unveils-next-gen-enterprise-pcie-gen-5-ssds-with-2nd-gen-xl-flash-mlc-up-to-13-5-gb-s-transfer-speed/

Are we finally going to get a modular gaming laptop that sticks?
https://www.pcgamer.com/are-we-finally-going-to-get-a-modular-gaming-laptop-that-sticks/
In July 2022, our hardware big boss Dave James checked out the modular, user-upgradeable Framework laptop, and declared (opens in new tab) "Framework shows what notebooks should be like, and now I desperately want it to make a gaming laptop." After attending a Framework event in San Francisco today, I've got some very good news for Dave—the moment has arrived.

Gigabyte claims next-generation AMD Ryzen AM5 desktop CPUs are coming later this year
https://videocardz.com/newz/gigabyte-claims-next-generation-amd-ryzen-am5-desktop-cpus-are-coming-later-this-year
 
>> The press release is about workstations, but AM5 is AMD's desktop platform. It's confusing.

AMD FSR 3 FidelityFX Super Resolution Technology Detailed: 2x The FPS With Frame Interpolation, Easy To Integrate In Existing FSR 2 Titles
https://wccftech.com/amd-fsr-3-fidelityfx-super-resolution-technology-detailed-2x-the-fps-with-frame-interpolation-easy-to-integrate-in-existing-fsr-2-titles/

Gigabyte and their leaks lol.

Zen 4 just came out late last year. It'll be crazy if Zen 5 launches so soon. Unless Zen 4/AM5 sales were really bad for AMD. And they want to do a semi-relaunch for AM5 with cheaper motherboards and an even bigger jump from AM4, with Zen 5.

In my opinion, we should wait until we get more leaks or info about those new AMD processors because it doesn't make much sense.

I could see AMD launching a refresh, but it feels too soon for Zen5.

Yeah a refresh makes more sense like a Zen 4+. Or perhaps a Zen 4 desktop APU line..

Even semi sweaters like Levelcap had always cranked their settings to low when they showed off their BF1/3/4 footage, even Jackfrags did it, and he even made a video on settings to turn down for perf gains (like vegetations, so you can see ppl who think they are hiding in bushes).

It is sadly the nature of PVP, the mantra has always been "do whatever it takes to win" (I shit you not, I heard some older douchebag mutter that to me during my time with MW2 back in the 360 days over the mic), sweaty players will always do whatever they can to get that edge.

I'd add that some of the fault relies on the developers. If your game allows you to "hide" in the bushes or grass, but you also allow to turn down the setting so much that you can eliminate that grass or bushes, you're encourage that sort of behavior.

I mean, they alllow us to turn virtually a lot of things down, some to absolute zero.

Remember the days of BF3, where the shadows were so dark, that people could hide in them?. people just used the game's brightness setting and cranked that near to max, just to stop people hiding in the shadowed corners of buildings and rubble.

I just think that if you're trying to release a competitive shooter, graphics shouldn't be your focus, because 9/10, ppl are going to crank those settings to gain that edge over those who are too enamoured by the visuals (like me during my time with BF1 lol, I died so much by not turning my settings down at all). 

Devs should honestly leave the visual spectacles to the co-op and singleplayer games, not the stupidly over competitive sweatlord games where the player mentality is "sacrifice everything for perf gains at all costs!", because then the work and effort that went into the visuals is then going to be ignored in favour of gameplay performance and K?D metrics (which is literally only what PVP players care about in PVP games, as that is their fun factor). 

Having a blast with Diablo 4. - I know it's a Beta, but some really janky crap going on, you enter an area and if all assets haven't loaded you sort of hit an invisible wall, then the game jerks you back to the start of the area.

Visuals are great. Sound design is top notch. Blizzard has done well.

To be fair, we are at the point where even CryEngine, idTech, Frostbite and Unreal pretty much scales across all hardware... From phones to high-end PC's.

I mean it is Counter Strike, so no one expects advanced visuals, but that doesn't mean they can't add extra visuals on top. - Any serious competitive Counter Strike player will drop settings to absolute lowest anyway, but for more casual players? More isn't a bad thing.

My issue isn't actually with Counter Strike specifically though, I personally have no care for that game, it's the engine itself, I want Valve to push that engine harder.

True. Source 2 is a bit eh when compared to other modern engines. Its just that, at this point idc about all that so long as they keep releasing quality games. Valve were seemingly on a hiatus for so many years are were super slow to get anything out until recently. So much so I'd rather them work on things I want to play, than mess around too much with engines. And so I'm just glad we're finally getting some new games from them. And who knows maybe Valve can count to three and we get a new L4D, Portal and HL3 in our lifetimes xD

Also been waiting for a proper update for CS for years and really happy we finally got one. So maybe bias comes into play lol.