Let's go with the Friday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Epic Games doubles its reward program for the 2023 Summer Sale, which is live now by the way
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-doubles-its-reward-program-for-the-2023-summer-sale-which-is-live-now-by-the-way/
The Epic Games Store's 2023 Summer Sale is now live, with beefy discounts and a doubling of the Epic Rewards program that will now give back 10% of what you spend in the store to use on other purchases.
The Epic Rewards program launched in May as part of the Epic Mega Sale, and it's a pretty simple concept: Two weeks after you make an eligible purchase—basically anything you buy on the Epic Store, plus in-game purchases in Epic games like Fortnite—you get 5% of whatever you spent back as an in-store credit. So if you buy a $60 game, for instance, you'll get $3 back for future purchases.
During the Summer Sale, however, that percentage is doubled to 10%. That's a pretty good giveback, and it applies to all eligible purchases, not just the stuff that's on sale.

The Humble Store has a new 2K Publisher Sale, with up to 80% discounts during the next 5 days. The keys are for Steam, EGS and also as a direct download: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/2k-publisher-sale/.

Fanatical has four new deals:

• The Star Deal is Stranded: Alien Dawn, 36% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/stranded-alien-dawn
• The Tomb Raider games are on sale with up to 75% discounts during the next 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/franchises/tomb-raider
• Publisher Aspyr Games puts its titles on sale, up to 85% off during 10 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/aspyr
• And the BYO Bento Bundle 2 comes with 18 titles to choose from to build your 3, 5 or 10 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-bento-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

This Elden Ring Mod reimagines the Ornstein & Smough bossfight
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-elden-ring-mod-reimagines-the-ornstein-smough-bossfight/
The team behind The Garden of Eyes overhaul mod for Elden Ring has released a new update that reimagines the Ornstein & Smough bossfight.
According to the team, the boss is a complete reimagination of the classic Dark Souls 1 boss, Ornstein & Smough, but with a full-on new design, models, music, animations, arenas, and unique phase 2.
Same with the original bossfight, when killing one of the duo first, the other one absorbs their power. Then, the game transitions into a completely new fight.
>> The article has an almost 10 minutes video of the mod.

New HD Texture Pack for Fallout 4 overhauls all armor and clothes
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/new-hd-texture-pack-for-fallout-4-overhauls-all-armor-and-clothes/
Modder ‘DoubleYou’ has released a new HD Texture Pack for Fallout 4 that overhauls all of the game’s armor and clothes. DobleYou has put a lot of effort into this pack, and these new textures look better than the vanilla ones. Thus, we highly recommend downloading it.
Going into more details, the modder has revised all diffuse textures with additional details. Moreover, DoubleYo has redone all normals maps to improve details, and fixed vanilla texture errors. All of the face-covering helmets, masks, and glasses were remodeled to include transparency so you can see the faces. Additionally, the modder improved specular and environment mapping effects, and added some forgotten cut content.
Now what’s interesting here is that although this pack is lower resolution than the official High-Resolution Texture Pack, it’s of better quality. Most diffuse textures are 4K BC1 and BC7, whereas normal maps are 2K BC5, and specular maps are 2K BC5.
>> The article has some screenshots and an almost 2 minutes video of the mod.

Uncanny Stardew Valley AI mod replaces its lovely villagers with '33 provided brains'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uncanny-stardew-valley-ai-mod-replaces-its-lovely-villagers-with-33-provided-brains/
Stardew Valley is a game known for its cosy homegrown feel, with complex, well-written characters populating a little village trying to scrape by under the looming shadow of a mega-corporation. So obviously, an AI company made a mod that scrapes out their personalities and replaces them with a large language model, with the appetising sales pitch: "By default, there are 33 provided brains."
InworldAI promises to "craft characters with distinct personalities and contextual awareness that stay in-world or on brand." Watching Pelican Town's civilians rattle off lines of inoffensive text, however, feels like I've stumbled into some alternate JojaMart bad ending, where all the textured characters of Stardew Valley have been body-snatched by clones.
>> This mod feels like a way to turn players into cobayas to test the AI model of that company.

GAMING NEWS

Armored Core 6 gets an official story trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/armored-core-6-gets-an-official-story-trailer/
Bandai Namco has released the official story trailer for FromSoftware’s upcoming mecha game, Armored Core 6. Now contrary to other story trailers, this one is a CG trailer, so don’t expect much from it. Still, it looks great so if you are a fan of the series, you should definitely check it out.

Diablo 4 July 20th Patch removes level requirement for World Tiers III & IV
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/diablo-4-july-20th-patch-removes-level-requirement-for-world-tiers-iii-iv/
After releasing its massive Patch 1.1.0a for Diablo 4, Blizzard released today a new small update for its action RPG. According to the changelog, the Diablo 4 July 20th Update removes the level requirement for World Tiers III and IV.

Here’s a Minecraft-like game in Unreal Engine 5 with Lumen
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/heres-a-minecraft-like-game-in-unreal-engine-5-with-lumen/
Indie developer Tooley1998 has shared some screenshots from his upcoming Minecraft-styled voxel game in Unreal Engine 5. Tooley1998 has added support for UE5’s Lumen, and these screenshots showcase this new lighting system.

Friday news, part two:

Roblox data leak sees 4,000 developer profiles including identifying information made public
https://www.pcgamer.com/roblox-data-leak-sees-4000-developer-profiles-including-identifying-information-made-public/
The major gaming platform Roblox has suffered a major data breach, leading to the release of personal information including addresses from those who attended the Roblox Developer Conference between 2017-2020. The leak contains almost 4,000 names, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and physical addresses. Such identifying information is gold dust for bad actors, and raises serious questions about the data security of one of the largest gaming platforms around.

After being kicked off Steam, Dolphin emulator devs say Nintendo's legal claim 'is a reach': 'Now that we have talked to a lawyer, we are no longer concerned'
https://www.pcgamer.com/after-being-kicked-off-steam-dolphin-emulator-devs-say-nintendos-legal-claim-is-a-reach-now-that-we-have-talked-to-a-lawyer-we-are-no-longer-concerned/
Six weeks after GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin was removed from Steam due to a letter from Nintendo claiming it "violates Nintendo’s intellectual property rights," the emulator's developers have issued a detailed response on the Dolphin blog. The response, with input from legal counsel, announces that the Dolphin team will not be re-attempting to launch the emulator on Steam. "We are abandoning our efforts to release Dolphin on Steam," the post states. "Valve ultimately runs the store and can set any condition they wish for software to appear on it ... given Nintendo's long-held stance on emulation, we find Valve's requirement for us to get approval from Nintendo for a Steam release to be impossible."

Diablo 4 queue times 'unusually long' as Season 1 kicks off
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-queue-times-unusually-long-as-season-1-kicks-off/
Diablo 4 is Blizzard's fastest-selling game yet, so it's no big surprise that the launch of its first seasonal realm is crowded: Diablo 4 Season 1 went live this morning at 10 am PT, and Blizzard says it's seeing "some unusually long queue times" as players pile in.

Apex Legends dev boldly declares that 'queue times are too short,' but let's hear them out
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-dev-boldly-declares-that-queue-times-are-too-short-but-lets-hear-them-out/
Have you ever sat around waiting to find a ranked match in your FPS of choice and thought, man, I wish this queue could take a bit longer! I'm having such a nice time doing nothing?
You'll have your wish in Apex Legends: Respawn Entertainment declared today that "queue times are too short" in a blog post opening up about Apex's recently rebooted ranked mode (as spotted by PCGamesN). The lengthy, surprisingly candid post examines the mode from every angle—what's working, what's failing, and the problems creating friction at higher levels of play, one of them being queue times.

Old School Runescape players were using a new bug to mass-murder each other and it got so bad the game had to be taken offline
https://www.pcgamer.com/old-school-runescape-players-were-using-a-new-bug-to-mass-murder-each-other-and-it-got-so-bad-the-game-had-to-be-taken-offline/
Old School Runescape is a 10-year-old MMO that's based on a 16-year-old MMO, and in light of that you might expect that it's a quiet, staid online realm where people enjoy their gaming buds and gameplay routines and nothing new ever happens. It's actually developed a reputation for just the opposite: Players keep finding new or unique things to do that wouldn't be possible (or reasonable) in a regular MMO.
The latest Old School Runescape shenanigans occurred in the wake of an update that, according to GamesRadar, made some small behind-the-scenes changes to the game. Regular maintenance stuff, really—except that after it was live, players discovered that sending "Rainbow" text in the game would crash the client. And not just their own client: Everyone who read the text would suffer the same fate.

Richard 'Lord British' Garriott still wants to make Ultima Online 2: 'All we need now is to buy EA'
https://www.pcgamer.com/richard-lord-british-garriott-still-wants-to-make-ultima-online-2-all-we-need-now-is-to-buy-ea/
As the very successful launch of New World last year showed us, there's still a big appetite for new MMOs these days, even if the heyday of the genre feels behind us. But what about a sequel to a classic? The father of Ultima, Richard Garriott, still wants to make a follow-up to what was arguably the first MMO, Ultima Online, but so far hasn't had much luck.

Studio makes actual minigame compilation based on those shovelware mobile game ads you see everywhere
https://www.pcgamer.com/studio-makes-actual-minigame-compilation-based-on-those-shovelware-mobile-game-ads-you-see-everywhere/
A feature of online life for anyone who's ever expressed the vaguest of interest in videogames is weird adverts for shovelware games. You know the type, my lord: little vignettes where someone's building a house, or saving a damsel from a burning pyre, or mixing gloop in an oddly satisfying way.
Well now someone's made a minigame collection on Steam with perhaps one of the most outstanding titles I've ever seen. I am going to give this name its own paragraph and allow it to retain caps lock for the full effect:
YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM!

Remnant 2 gets you into its zany multiverse shenanigans almost right away, thank god
https://www.pcgamer.com/remnant-2-gets-you-into-its-zany-multiverse-shenanigans-almost-right-away-thank-god/
I loved Remnant: From the Ashes with all my heart—it's an ambitious third-person romp through a fantastical multiverse wonderland. It's a little rough around the edges, sure, but it has a ton of heart. My number one nitpick, however, is that it took way too long to show off what was great about its setting: unrestrained creativity.
(...)
Imagine my relief when I got my hands on Remnant 2 a little early this week. There's a brief tutorial on planet Earth, sure, but it's busy with enough NPC chatter to keep me from thinking too hard about how much I'd rather be in that one cyberpunk world they showed off in a trailer.
Just as I was starting to worry the game was making the same mistake twice, my guy got whisked away to Losomn, a land where two alien species named Dran and Fae are at war with each other. It's completely unrestrained, with grand vampiric architecture that would give Lady Dimitrescu a run for her money, like if you smashed together Bloodborne with Alfheim from 2018's God of War.

Let's end the news checking the weekend deals from GOG and Steam:

+GOG

• The first of the five Deals of the Day is Bread & Fred, 20% off until Monday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/bread_fred
• Pieces of my Heart, a bit NSFW, is getting a 24% discount during 70 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/pieces_of_my_heart
• Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo features a 67% deal until the 24th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/alfred_hitchcock_vertigo
• The Syberia Collection, with four games, will be 70% off until Monday, 24th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/syberia_anniversary_collection
• And the last DotD is Class of '09, with a 79% discount until July, 24th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/class_of_09
• By the way, GOG is suffering from technical problems due to a third party provider. You can buy and play games as usual, but you can't download files at the moment. Learn more here: https://www.gog.com/en/news/update_on_technical_issues_affecting_downloading_and_updating_games

+Steam

• The A Plague Tale Bundle, with both games, is going to be 55% off until Monday. The individual games are also on sale, 80 and 50% off, respectively: https://store.steampowered.com/sub/802975
• The SimFest 2023 features up to 90% discounts until the 24th, albeit some deals will last a bit longer: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/simfest
• Publisher Curve Games celebrates its July Jubilee with up to 90% discounts until the 25th: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/curvedigital/sale/curvejulyjubilee23
• Smalland: Survive the Wilds, still in Early Access, is going to be 25% off until July, 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/768200/Smalland_Survive_the_Wilds/
• Legion TD 2 - Multiplayer Tower Defense is going to be free to try during the weekend and 35% off until Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/469600/Legion_TD_2__Multiplayer_Tower_Defense/
• Hell Let Loose will also get a 35% discount until Thursday, 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/
• And the last deal, Need for Speed Unbound, is going to be free to try during the weekend and 70% off until the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846380/Need_for_Speed_Unbound/

That's all folks! Until the next time, I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.

AMD CEO Refutes Rumors of A Potential Deal With Samsung, Says MI300 GPUs Cannot Be Done Without TSMC

https://wccftech.com/amd-ceo-refutes-rumors-of-a-potential-deal-with-samsung-says-mi300-gpus-cannot-be-done-without-tsmc/

AMD Ryzen 7000 Gaming Benchmarks With Latest BIOS Show No Performance Difference Between DDR5-6200 & DDR5-7400

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7000-gaming-benchmarks-latest-bios-no-performance-difference-ddr5-6200-ddr5-7400/

Makes sense considering Infinity Fabric speed is the biggest bottleneck hence why Vcache boosts the performance so much as the cores don't need to go through to Fabric to access it

MSI & Gigabyte Achieve DDR5-8600 & DDR5-9058 Memory Speeds On AM5 With Latest BIOS

https://wccftech.com/msi-gigabyte-achieve-ddr5-8600-ddr5-9058-memory-speeds-am5-latest-bios/

(See above)

ASUS teases new GeForce RTX 40 Evangelion-themed graphics card

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-teases-new-geforce-rtx-40-evangelion-themed-graphics-card

I liked the old one better

Maybe at $400 this would have been a good card but at $500, skip. Least GPUs are being discounted quickly so this should come down in price very soon.

AMD Bergamo & Genoa-X EPYC Server CPUs Crush The Competition With Sheer Performance & Efficiency Dominance

https://wccftech.com/amd-bergamo-genoa-x-epyc-server-cpus-crush-competition-sheer-performance-efficiency-dominance/

Brutally fast

Intel’s Upcoming Linux Vulkan Driver To Boost Gaming Performance By Up To 12% For Arc GPUs

https://wccftech.com/intels-linux-vulkan-driver-to-boost-gaming-performance-up-to-12-percent-arc-gpus/

Samsung Reportedly Offers NVIDIA HBM3 & 2.5D Packaging For AI GPUs

https://wccftech.com/samsung-reportedly-offers-nvidia-hbm3-2-5d-packaging-for-ai-gpus/

Well that didn't last long lul. The fact that Twitter also released the ability for creators to make ad revenue shortly after Threads got released essentially made Threads DoA. Didn't help that Threads also were banning nsfw material.

The 4060Ti should have been the 4050Ti, so even at $400, that 16GB model would have been extremely overpriced.

And don't forget that Threads hasn't launched in Europe because of governments are evil and care about the user's data protection. That's another reason why it has failed to gain traction.

A few interesting things in this video.

Firstly it allows Sata SSDs to not only be on par with 3.5GB/s Nvme SSDs with RTX IO off but also isn't too far from Nvme SSDs with RTX IO on. Now with larger games, we could see a bigger difference.

Older CPU/GPU combo can load textures very fast as well so you don't need crazy CPU like CPU based decompression

And in the case of portal, you save about 15GB worth of space on the RTX IO version

There's more stuff in the video if you want to watch it. It's only 10 minutes.

A video I made using "Custom OST" + "HD Mod" + "Hard Mode" for Final Fantasy XIII-2.

My art friends mostly hail from the nsfw content area, and there's been so many a site banning nsfw material (instead of y'know, just banning kids off social media, which would benefit literally everyone on the planet), that it's reaching a point where some of my friends are just starting up their own websites to host their art, price sheets, ToS, etc, to prevent the loss of their galleries and business. 

Really these businesses shouldn't be trying to pull a Blizzard and try banning NSFW, because well, you can't kill it, just like how you can't ever kill piracy. 

The 16GB 4060Ti actually sees some significant performance gains in titles that are memory starved, removing the stuttering and inconsistent frame times in the process... And notably a massive uptick in 1% lows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Y3E631ro8

Obviously for games that are able to fit into the 8GB frame buffer, the 16GB variant will fall short, but that won't hold true forever in this cross-generation console development period.

The issue with the 16GB 4060Ti isn't the memory capacity, performance or otherwise... It's actually the price, it should have been a 4050 tier priced part.

High-end parts always sell well because they sell to more than just gamers, but professionals who will likely see productivity/profit gains from the increased performance headroom.

I.E. CGI can justify upgrading to the latest and greatest every year because of increased development productivity.

Yeah, should have been an easy win for AMD, especially after chest-beating how important vram is, but then only including 8GB on the 7600.

But to their credit, the 7600 doesn't exist in a vacuum, the 12GB 6700XT/6750XT can be found for about the same price and is definitely the superior buy to everything else in regards to price/performance on the market.

The 7600 doesn't even make sense if you are a Radeon 6600 owner... It's a shit product.

AMD and nVidia are chasing profit margins and not volume this generation and it shows.

We need Intel to start taking more marketshare to apply pressure to our two incumbents in the GPU space.

Greeat news, everyone! The Legend of Monkey Island expansion ain't PVP!

Here is my playthrough of the first episode "The Journey to Mêlée Island":