Good morning, guys. Let's turns this Monday into something better with a new contest:

*** NEW CONTEST ***

Win an amazing be quiet! chassis, power supply and cooler bundle
https://www.club386.com/win-an-amazing-be-quiet-chassis-power-supply-and-cooler-bundle/
or https://gleam.io/qFeYf/win-an-amazing-be-quiet-chassis-power-supply-and-cooler-bundle

The prize contists of:

• Dark Base Pro 901 case
• Dark Rock Pro 4 CPU cooler
• 1300W Dark Power Pro 13 power supply

This contest is GLOBAL.

Good luck!

So, some pictures and first impressions of my new laptop: It's very silent (fans are idle outside of high workloads and even when they get to spin, they stay rather silent), the screen is good and large (16:10 format), the keyboard and mousepad very responsive, and the battery life just superb. I've been running the laptop on battery now for about 3 hours and it only dropped by 14%.

As for the pictures, here they come:

I love how the box opens like an office suitcase ;)

Even the desktop background says advantage edition

Looks great! Congrats!

It looks perfect for a FFXIII's trilogy run ! :D

For that the 500GB SSD is a bit too small

hence why I ordered a new one for the second slot (after making sure there was an additional slot.

Here come the Monday news, with a quite big first post:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG's Summer Sale is in its final hours, ending in less than 7 hours. It's your last time to get something.

The Humble Store has a DRM Freedom Sale, with up to 90% discounts during 4 days. Almost every game has keys for GOG, with most, but not all, also been available for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/drm-freedom-sale/.

And Fanatical, where the Red Hot Sale is still going on, has a new Star Deal: UNCHARTED™: Legacy of Thieves Collection will be 51% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/uncharted-legacy-of-thieves-collection.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Valve is scrutinizing games with AI assets on Steam, says avoiding copyright violation 'is the developer's responsibility'
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-scrutinizing-games-with-ai-assets-on-steam-says-avoiding-copyright-violation-is-the-developers-responsibility/
The controversy around AI-generated content for videogames is starting to impact the biggest digital distribution platform on PC: an anonymous developer recently made a post on reddit (first spotted by Simon Carless) about the rejection of their game, claiming that "Valve is not willing to publish AI-generated content anymore." In a statement to PC Gamer and other publications, Valve elaborated that it is not opposed to generative tools as a concept, but instead takes the copyright concerns around them extremely seriously.
The developer says they tried to get a game approved on Steam about a month ago "with a few assets that were fairly obviously AI generated" and received the following response:
"While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights.
"After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belong to one or more third parties. In particular, [Game Name Here] contains art assets generated by artificial intelligence that appears to be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties. As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game."
>> Makes sense.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

The creators of RPCS3 are working on a Playstation 4 emulator
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-creators-of-rpcs3-are-working-on-a-playstation-4-emulator/
Now here is something unexpected. Nekotekina, kd-11 and DH, creators of the best PS3 emulator for PC, RPCS3, are currently working on a new Playstation 4 emulator.
This PS4 emulator is in a very early development stage. And when I say in very early, I mean VERY EARLY. At this point, the team has not been able to boot any PS4 game yet. So no, it doesn’t run any Playstation 4 games. Still, this is the PS4 emulator we should keep an eye on as it’s coming from the people behind RPCS3.

These Resident Evil 4 Remake Mods add Albert Wesker’s Richard Waugh and D.C. Douglas voices
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/these-resident-evil-4-remake-mods-add-albert-weskers-richard-waugh-and-d-c-douglas-voices/
Resident Evil fans, here is something for you today. Modder ‘BlitzKrieg’ has released two mods for Resident Evil 4 Remake that add the original voices of Albert Wesker.
Using AI techniques, the modder was able to create Wesker’s dialogue lines using D.C. Douglas and Richard Waugh. Since I’m a big fan of D.C. Douglas, I gave this mod a go and the results are impressive. Yes, Wesker now sounds more like the Wesker some of you loved in Resident Evil 5.
>> The article has two videos.

The Witcher 3 Next-Gen gets 8K Texture Pack for Triss Merigold
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/the-witcher-3-next-gen-gets-8k-texture-pack-for-triss-merigold/
A couple of days ago, we shared an 8K Texture Pack for The Witcher 3 Next-Gen that improved the Young and Adult versions of Ciri. And it appears that we should have waited as yesterday, modder ‘Instanity’ released another 8K Texture Pack that overhauls Triss Merigold.
Thanks to these texture packs, the main group of The Witcher 3 Next-Gen now has 8K textures. And as with the previous packs, this new one for Triss improves her face, body and clothes textures.
>> Like the previos 8K mod the article talks about, there are only some screenshots to show the improvements.

Street Fighter 6 gets amazing must-have realistic lighting mods
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/street-fighter-6-gets-amazing-must-have-realistic-lighting-mods/
Modder ‘alphaZomega’ has released two must-have realistic lighting mods for Capcom’s latest fighting game, Street Fighter 6. These mods attempt to make the game less cartoony and a bit more realistic.
Going into more details, this first mod introduces realistic lighting in stages. The mod dims all the default stage lights of several stages to about 10%, then places some attractive spotlights around that highlight details like skin, fabric, sweat and muscle definition. There are 4-5 of these spotlights illuminating the stage and they all cast real-time shadows.
(...)Do note that this mod currently overhauls three stages (future versions will improve more stages). (...)
The second mod removes the character backlight effect, making all characters look more realistic. What’s funny is that the backlight of the vanilla version can be really distracting. So again, this is a must-have mod as it can improve overall image quality. (...)
>> The article has some screenshots to showcase the changes.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim gets 8K Texture Pack for landscapes
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-gets-8k-texture-pack-for-landscapes/
Modder ‘Shish15’ has released a must-have 8K Texture Pack for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition that overhauls its landscapes. As the modder noted, these new textures aim to provide realism, regionality and natural diversity to Skyrim’s landscapes.
This pack is also available in 2K and 4K versions. However, if you have enough VRAM, we highly recommend the 8K version. This 8K pack is 6GB in size and you can download it from here.
>> Once again, the article only has some screenshots.

There's a new Resident Evil 4 mod that brings the remake's best addition back in time to the original game
https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-a-new-resident-evil-4-mod-that-brings-the-remakes-best-addition-back-in-time-to-the-original-game/
My single favorite thing in the Resident Evil 4 remake is its sick as hell, Sekiro-style parry system, a genius improvement to RE4's already-legendary combat. Now, thanks to modders kreedyk and qingsheng, that feature's been brought back to the original game.
The RE4 remake parry is actually just a smaller part of a much bigger mod, "New Trainer Introduction UHD." It allows for everything from bringing Mercenaries mode-exclusive weapons to the main game, to full-on model swaps like playing as Ashley or HUNK. I'm just here for that sweet, sweet knife parry though.
Installation and use is a little more convoluted than your typical mod, but still nothing crazy. I opted for a manual installation⁠—I don't know nothin' about no "Fluffy Manager."
>> The article has instructions to install the mod and a 37 seconds video.

GAMING NEWS

Leaked gameplay footage from the PVPVE extraction shooter, Arc Raiders
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/leaked-gameplay-footage-from-the-pvpve-extraction-shooter-arc-raiders/
Embark Studios, the developers behind the free-to-play online fast-paced first-person shooter, THE FINALS, is currently working on a PVPVE extraction shooter, called Arc Raiders. And, from the looks of it, the first gameplay footage from its closed beta phase has been leaked online.

Battlefield 2042 Update 5.1.0 releases next week, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/battlefield-2042-update-5-1-0-releases-next-week-full-patch-notes/
DICE has announced that Title Update 5.1.0 for Battlefield 2042 will release next week, and shared its complete changelog. According to the release notes, this new update will fix a number of bugs and glitches, and it will bring improvements to the squad spawning.
>> The article is dated June 30, so the update should release this week.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has killed Daedalic Entertainment
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-has-killed-daedalic-entertainment/
And the writing was on the wall. After the huge flop that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was, Daedalic announced the closure of its development department.
>> shikamaru317 made a thread about this some days ago.

New screenshots & gameplay trailer for the STALKER-inspired MMORPG, Pioner
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-screenshots-gameplay-trailer-for-the-stalker-inspired-mmorpg-pioner/
Back in June 2021, we informed you about an upcoming STALKER-inspired first-person action MMORPG, Pioner. And today, we present you some new in-game screenshots and a gameplay trailer for it.

The full source code of Crytek’s Far Cry has been leaked online
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-full-source-code-of-cryteks-far-cry-has-been-leaked-online/
It appears that the full source code of the first Far Cry game, developed by Crytek, has been leaked online. Far Cry is the game that put Crysis on everyone’s radar, so it will be interesting to see what modders can now achieve with it.

F1 23 is the first game using DLSS 2 Ultra Quality Mode [UPDATE: NVIDIA responds]
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/f1-23-is-the-first-game-using-dlss-2-ultra-quality-mode/
F1 23 came out last month and from the looks of it, it’s the first game using NVIDIA DLSS 2 Ultra Quality Mode. Or at least that’s what its in-game settings suggest.
UPDATE: NVIDIA got back to us and confirmed what we initially assumed. This is indeed DLAA and not a new DLSS preset.

New Flashback 2 gameplay trailer showcases its environments
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-flashback-2-gameplay-trailer-showcases-its-environments/
Microids has released a new gameplay trailer for Flashback 2 that showcases some of its environments. Flashback 2 promises to offer an experience faithful to the Flashback universe, and this trailer will give you a taste of it.

Rise of the Ronin leak suggests a mix of Assassin’s Creed, Ghost of Tsushima and Dark Souls
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/rise-of-the-ronin-leak-suggests-a-mix-of-assassins-creed-ghost-of-tsushima-and-dark-souls/
In September 2022, KOEI Tecmo revealed a new game from Team Ninja, called Rise of the Ronin. And, according to a new leak, this will be a mix of Assassin’s Creed, Ghost of Tsushima and Dark Souls.
>> The mix sounds, at the very least, ambitious.

Monday news, with the equally long part two:

The hunt's over: all 6 of Diablo 4's mega-rare items have been discovered
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-hunts-over-all-6-of-diablo-4s-mega-rare-items-have-been-discovered/
Diablo 4 players can finally rest easy—that is, unless they're trying to farm these pieces themselves—as the last of Diablo 4's six elusive super-rare items has been found. As spotted by AnyComputer on the Diablo 4 subreddit, the final piece of the collection was The Melted Heart of Selig. It dropped for a Chinese necromancer player in the Blind Burrows, a dungeon that can be found in the Hawezar region of the map.
>> Oh, and some claim that rats will lead you to legendary loots.

The Sims 5 will be 'free-to-enter' according to EA job posting
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-5-will-be-free-to-enter-according-to-ea-job-posting/
If you'd put money on The Sims 5 being free-to-play at launch, you can cash out your winnings now and go put them in a secure location so you can buy all the inevitable DLC in its wake. According to an EA job posting spotted by Sims Community, the next Sims will be a "free-to-enter game."

Only Up! pulled from Steam, developer says it'll be back (update: and now it is back)
https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-phenomenon-only-up-pulled-from-steam/
One of the most popular new games on Twitch can no longer be purchased on Steam. It's not known why Only Up! was delisted, but it happened not long after an artist accused the game of using a 3D model they made without permission, leading to speculation that Valve gave it the boot over copyright infringement concerns.
Update: A few hours after it was pulled, Only Up! is back on Steam.

Homeworld 3 brazenly flouts RTS tradition with units that talk to each other instead of you, their esteemed invisible commander
https://www.pcgamer.com/homeworld-3-chatter-design-barks/
This is a tough call to make: Should RTS units cycle through the comforting traditional acknowledgments when you click on them—"ready," "awaiting orders," that kind of thing—or should unit barks finally evolve past the generic assertions of Command & Conquer and Warcraft? For the upcoming Homeworld 3, Blackbird Interactive is taking the latter position, saying that it's innovating on unit barks and that "the scale of chatter design" in the RTS is greater than the series has ever seen.

Riven's remake gets its first gameplay reveal, and the original Myst sequel's co-director is heading up the project
https://www.pcgamer.com/rivens-remake-gets-its-first-gameplay-reveal-and-the-original-myst-sequels-co-director-is-heading-up-the-project/
At this year's MysteriumCon, Myst creator Cyan Worlds provided a first look at alpha gameplay of its upcoming remake of Riven: The Sequel to Myst. The short demo came at the end of a presentation where it was also revealed that Riven's original co-director, Richard Vander Wende, has been heading up the remake.

Stranded: Alien Dawn goes to a tropical hell in new update
https://www.pcgamer.com/stranded-alien-dawn-goes-to-a-tropical-hell-in-new-update/
Alien planet colony survival sim Stranded: Alien Dawn has dropped a new update with a new region of the planet to survive: Saltu, a hot, wet tropical region that will provide entirely new challenges to even seasoned survivalists.

CS:GO ban wave results in over $2 million worth of skins and other items being lost
https://www.pcgamer.com/csgo-ban-wave-results-in-over-dollar2-million-worth-of-skins-and-other-items-being-lost/
Valve has banned roughly 40 CS:GO accounts for trading, with the result that more than $2 million worth of in-game items have been lost. Any account that receives a community ban can no longer trade items, and so their stockpiles of CS:GO skins, stickers, gloves, knives, and the like are now in limbo. Other traders are apparently taking this as a warning, and selling everything they've got.

Build and defend a cool castle, block by block, in the Cataclismo demo
https://www.pcgamer.com/build-and-defend-a-cool-castle-block-by-block-in-the-cataclismo-demo/
An upcoming base-building RTS from the developer of Moonlighter and The Mageseeker has a demo on Steam showing off the versatility of its building system and how potentially exciting an RTS it's shaping up to be.

BattleBit devs fought constant DDoS attacks, but the blocky shooter has a big future
https://www.pcgamer.com/battlebit-devs-fought-constant-ddos-attacks-but-the-blocky-shooter-has-a-big-future/
Some people just hate it when other people have fun and when creatives succeed. That's the only takeaway I have from an update by the four developers of BattleBit Remastered, the lo-fi 254-player shooter that released mid-June to broad acclaim and a coveted spot atop Steam's best-sellers list.
The latest update details how developers SgtOkiDoki and crew were subjected to "significant" DDoS attacks on BattleBit's servers starting on launch day. The first week after launch was pretty smooth sailing, and few people noticed anything aside from packet loss, because the devs' firewall was ready to go and held up. Held up despite, to quote the developers: "A significant number of DDOS attacks on all of our servers continuously, some of them literally a day long."

Revived mecha RPG classic Front Mission 1st: Remake comes to PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/revived-mecha-rpg-classic-front-mission-1st-remake-comes-to-pc/
Reach for the controls of your stompy war machines, folks, because Front Mission's back. The classic series of Japanese-made strategy RPGs focusing on tactical mech action got a remake release on Switch last year, but just this past week has released on PC. The remake of the 1995 Front Mission, by Forever Entertainment, has been pretty positively received by fans of mechs and tough tactics who are finally getting a worldwide release of the series.

Ark's remaster has been delayed, will release with a launch discount
https://www.pcgamer.com/arks-remaster-has-been-delayed-will-release-with-a-launch-discount/
Ark: Survival Ascended, a remaster of poop-harvesting dinosaur trainer Ark: Survival Evolved in Unreal Engine 5, was first teased as if it was going to be a free upgrade. When it was officially announced as part of a $50 bundle that included a preorder for Ark 2, fans were unimpressed. Studio Wildcard pivoted and then announced that, rather than packaging the remaster with a preorder for the sequel, it would instead come with several DLC upgrades, which it would receive more of after launch as free updates. Also, it would now cost $10 more.
Studio Wildcard was aiming to release the remaster in late August, which it has now pushed back to October. As the studio's latest newsletter explains, "We've found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2, but at the same time, it is incredibly exciting. We're discovering new ways each day to push the technology to the next level; combined with the work needed to support a fully cross-platform-moddable game ecosystem on consoles and PC, it's clear that we'll need a bit more time."

Bungie weighs in on the current argument raging through the Destiny 2 lore community: Has the Witness been retconned?
https://www.pcgamer.com/bungie-weighs-in-on-the-current-argument-raging-through-the-destiny-2-lore-community-has-the-witness-been-retconned/
There's been an argument raging in Destiny 2 lore communities for years, ever since Bungie revealed the Witness—the big bad that's been working behind the scenes throughout the game's Light and Darkness saga—at the end of The Witch Queen campaign. The question, fiercely debated, is this: Is the Witness the same entity as the Winnower, the cosmic force described back in the Shadowkeep expansion lore book Unveiling?

Why is Destiny 2's latest dungeon so hard? In part because the Root of Nightmares raid was so easy
https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-destiny-2s-latest-dungeon-so-hard-in-part-because-the-root-of-nightmares-raid-was-so-easy/
At a recent roundtable Q&A session with Bungie for Destiny 2's Season of the Deep, I asked why the bosses in its latest dungeon have so much damn health. And sure, I know what you're thinking: get good. But it's not just me. On release, plenty of the player reaction—particularly from those who like to solo Destiny 2's dungeons—was about how many phases it takes to bring down its two bosses.
The answer surprised me, because it reveals just how much each dungeon is designed as a response to the previous one.

Cities: Skylines 2 is making an important change to how public transportation works
https://www.pcgamer.com/cities-skylines-2-is-making-an-important-change-to-how-public-transportation-works/
One of the issues with the original Cities: Skylines is the way you unlock new public transportation options. The unlocks are based entirely on population milestones (...). That means you need thousands of residents before you can access those important services.
That's why it's great news that in Cities: Skylines 2, new modes of public transportation won't be unlocked by population milestones. Instead, as we learned today in the new Cities: Skylines development diary, public transportation options are unlocked using something called "development points."

You seem quite pleased with your new laptop, Bofferbrauer2. I'm happy for you.

NVIDIA working on an updated “12V-2×6” power connector with improved safety

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-working-on-an-updated-12v-2x6-power-connector-with-improved-safety

Lol the original igors lab article being all sassy and saying I told you when he couldn't reproduce the issue himself and all he did was spread fud. We all knew a revision was coming since clearly the original connector wasn't fool proof. Hopefully this one will be better.

More Pictures Of That Alleged NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Ti Cooler Leak Out & It’s Thick AF

https://wccftech.com/more-pictures-of-that-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-ti-cooler-leak-out-its-thick-af/

I almost want to call it a fake because of the fact he is selling it without the actual 4090 Ti

Intel confirms Arrow Lake-S & Lunar Lake CPUs will support instructions for AVX-VNNI, SHA512, SM3, SM4 and LAM

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-confirms-arrow-lake-s-lunar-lake-cpus-will-support-instructions-for-avx-vnni-int16-sha512-sm3-sm4-and-lam

AMD Instinct MI250 Sees Boosted AI Performance With PyTorch 2.0 & ROCm 5.4, Closes In On NVIDIA GPUs In LLMs

https://wccftech.com/amd-instinct-mi250-boosted-ai-performance-pytorch-2-0-rocm-5-4-closes-in-on-nvidia-gpus/

Intel Xeon “Granite Rapids-SP” CPUs for future LGA-4710 socket have been pictured

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-xeon-granite-rapids-sp-cpus-for-future-lga-4710-socket-have-been-pictured

As usual, Ryzen Ai need a lot of improvements. While the power usage has a big gap when using Ryzen Ai vs Nvidia Ai, the fact that Nvidia Ai is leagues better, especially in background blur mode makes Ryzen Ai almost seem unusable.

The Sims 5 will be 'free-to-enter' according to EA job posting
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-5-will-be-free-to-enter-according-to-ea-job-posting/
If you'd put money on The Sims 5 being free-to-play at launch, you can cash out your winnings now and go put them in a secure location so you can buy all the inevitable DLC in its wake. According to an EA job posting spotted by Sims Community, the next Sims will be a "free-to-enter game."

Free to enter hahahahah. What the.