With the average daily playtime being over 5.3 hours, no wonder the estimates got out of whack.

NVIDIA announces DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, launches this fall

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-announces-dlss-3-5-with-ray-reconstruction-launches-this-fall

Half-Life 2 RTX - Community made remaster announced

Portal RTX also upgraded to DLSS 3.5 RR

Meanwhile AMD with FSR 3.0..

The Tuesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

(Click here for the top 100)

Steam features new deals and weeklong deals:

• The Ukranian Games Festival 2023 brings up to 90% discounts until August, 24th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/UkrainianGames2023
• DANGEN Entertainment's Summer Publishing Sale has up to 90% deals until the 25th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/dangen_publisher_sale_2023
• The Dreamhack Beyond Summer Indie Showcase started a few days ago and will last until the 27th, featuring up to 70% discounts: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40157993-DreamHack/sale/dreamhackbeyondsummerindieshowcase
• Chronicon will be 50% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/375480/Chronicon/
• Vampire Survivors will be 25% off until August, 31st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794680/Vampire_Survivors/
• The Sherlock Holmes Franchise is on sale with up to 80% discounts until the 28th. It's also part of the Ukranian sale, but it will last longer: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/sherlockholmes/
• Craftopia, still in Early Access, will be 40% off until the 4th of September: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307550/Craftopia/
• The Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023 features up to 80% discounts, but most of the games aren't on sale. The length of the deals varies. Some will end in a day while others will last the whole week and more: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/bic2023
• And this is a small selection of the weeklong deals:
  • Okinawa Rush is 10% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/777670/Okinawa_Rush/
  • Island Farmer - Jigsaw Puzzle gets a 30% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1564560/Island_Farmer__Jigsaw_Puzzle/
  • Lost Lands: The Wanderer Collector's Edition, that has a demo, is 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/626640/Lost_Lands_The_Wanderer_Collectors_Edition/
  • Bug Academy gets a 68% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/881040/Bug_Academy/
  • Hinterland is 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/17140/Hinterland/
  • And the last one is HoPiKo, with a 90% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/437390/HoPiKo/

Fanatical's Summer Sale enters its Encore stage, meaning that it will end soon(-ish). That doesn't stop them from launching new Flash Deals, not available yet, a new Sale and a new bundle:

• Bandai Namco puts its games on sale with up to 91% discounts during 9 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/bandai-namco-entertainment
• The BYO Slayer Bundle IX is live, with 16 titles to choose from for your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-slayer-bundle-ix

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 23.8.1
https://videocardz.com/driver/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-23-8-1
Highlights

• Support for: Immortals of Aveum™

Fixed Issues

• Improvements to high idle power when using select multi-display setups with mixed high-resolution and high refresh rate displays on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs with variable refresh rate enabled. Further optimizations are being investigated to improve idle power on additional display configurations.
• Performance drop may be experienced for DirectX® 11 games on AMD Radeon™ RX 5600 XT when AMD SmartAccess Memory is Enabled.
• Application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Ratchet & Clank™: Rift Apart with Ray-Tracing and Dynamic Resolution Scaling enabled on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 7900 XTX.
• Application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Starcraft II™ on Radeon™ RX 7000 series GPUs.
• Intermittent corruption may be observed playing Rocket League™ with Bloom set to Off on some AMD Graphics Products, such as the Radeon™ RX 6900 XT.
• Performance drop may be experienced for various games on AMD Ryzen™ processors with Radeon™ 700M series GPUS.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 537.13
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-537-13
Highlights
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games including Starfield and the ICARUS: New Frontiers expansion.

Fixed Issues

• Fixed Gaming Bugs
  • [Battlefield 2042] Game stability can decrease when applying GeForce Experience Freestyle filters [4170804]
  • [Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart] Performance fluctuations due to issues between DirectStorage and NVIDIA Reflex [4212649]
• Fixed General Bugs
  • [Vegas Pro FX] Preview not working on some notebook configurations [3752618]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Baldur's Gate 3 modder enchants Gale's underwear with one of the most devastating spells in Dungeons & Dragons
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-modder-enchants-gales-underwear-with-one-of-the-most-devastating-spells-in-dungeons-and-dragons/
A Baldur's Gate 3 modder read the item description on Gale's underwear that suggests the wizard enchanted his own drawers and made it real.
The mod—which is titled like it'll be a part of a series of brief tweaks—is called Gale's Magic Underpants - Meteor Swarm, which gives the wearer (most likely your magic-hungry wizard) one of the most devastating spells in Dungeons & Dragons.
Meteor Swarm is a level nine Evocation Spell that does 40-240 damage, and you can spread its attack onto three targets. It's not actually available in Baldur's Gate 3, but modder antichamp was able to tape a few existing spells together to make it happen. The explosion from Meteor Swarm is powerful enough to instantly kill most of the enemies you run into early on in the RPG. I went and used Gale's hidden spell on the three ogres in the Blighted Village and it basically leveled the entire building.
>> There's a short gif/video.

GAMING NEWS

Here are over 30 minutes of leaked gameplay from Starfield
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-over-30-minutes-of-leaked-gameplay-from-starfield/
YouTube’s ‘DHavenShadow’ has shared a new video, showcasing over 30 minutes of leaked gameplay footage from Starfield. This video packs off-camera footage, meaning that you won’t be able to fully appreciate the game’s graphics.

Forza Motorsport supports DLSS 2/FSR 2.0 & DirectStorage on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/forza-motorsport-supports-dlss-2-fsr-2-0-directstorage-on-pc/
Microsoft and Turn10 have revealed some new tech details about the PC version of Forza Motorsport. According to the teams, the game will support DLSS 2/FSR 2.0 and DirectStorage on PC. Moreover, you can find below the full PC system requirements for Forza Motorsport.
>> 130GB of storage...

Tuesday news, part two:

'Absolute Evil' simulator Dungeons 4 is coming in November, here's our first look at gameplay
https://www.pcgamer.com/absolute-evil-simulator-dungeons-4-is-coming-in-november-heres-our-first-look-at-gameplay/
Dungeons 4, the latest addition to the popular be-the-bad-guy dungeon builder series, will launch on November 9, and we've got an exclusive first look at gameplay thanks to the launch trailer that went live today.

Dark and Darker pledges to fight back against cheaters with a Discord bot with a 30-day lifespan
https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-and-darker-pledges-to-fight-back-against-cheaters-with-a-discord-bot-with-a-30-day-lifespan/
Embattled PvP dungeon crawler Dark and Darker has a new fight on its hands, but at least this one won't happen in a courtroom. It needs to clamp down on the cheaters that have taken to the game after it finally hit early access a couple of weeks ago, in spite of the legal troubles that continue to keep it off Steam.
"Right now we are fighting a difficult fight against cheaters as we gather information with [Dark and Darker's anticheat tech] Ironshield," wrote Ironmace dev "Graysun" in a post on the game's Discord (via PCGamesN). That means the studio is bringing out the big guns, by which I mean a Discord bot that you can send evidence of cheating, so long as you do it in a timely manner.

Why people are talking about Starfield's start screen: Gaming's latest Twitter dust-up, explained
https://www.pcgamer.com/why-people-are-talking-about-starfields-start-screen-gamings-latest-twitter-dust-up-explained/
(...)
Over the weekend, former game developer Mark Kern, whose past credits include StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Firefall, shared his thoughts on "the physiognomy of start screens."
"The start screen of a game can reveal a lot about how rushed the team was and how much pride they took in their work," Kern tweeted. "Starfield's start screen either shows hasty shipping deadlines by a passionate team overworked, or a team that didn't care.
(...)
The response from Hines was short and sharp. "[The development team] designed what they wanted and that's been our menu for years and was one of the first things we settled on," he tweeted. "Having an opinion is one thing. Questioning out a developer's 'care' because you would have done it differently is highly unprofessional coming from another 'dev'."
>> Doing a quick search about that guy, he doesn't seem to be the right person to criticize anyone. 

How to watch Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/gamescom-opening-night-live-2023-how-to-watch/
August is nearly over, meaning that Gamescom Opening Night Live is coming to close out the summer season of gaming announcements. Hosted by Geoff Keighley ahead of the yearly gaming show in Germany, Opening Night Live is similar to his Summer Game Fest livestream with announcements and trailers for upcoming games.
This year, Opening Night Live airs on Tuesday, August 22. Here's what you need to know to catch it live.

It's-a not me: Voice actor of Mario retires after 27 years
https://www.pcgamer.com/its-a-not-me-voice-actor-of-mario-retires-after-27-years/
Charles Martinet has been the voice of Nintendo's mascot Mario since 1996, but no more. Nintendo has announced that the actor is to step down from the role, and will instead act as a "Mario ambassador" in the future, which is all rather ceremonial and full of pomp for a gig that mainly involves shouting "wa-hoo!"
>> Not exactly a PC related announcement, but f*ck it.

D&D's clunky exhaustion rules are in Baldur's Gate 3, but they only apply to one unlucky (and very tired) bird
https://www.pcgamer.com/dandds-clunky-exhaustion-rules-are-in-baldurs-gate-3-but-they-only-apply-to-one-unlucky-and-very-tired-bird/
As spotted by user When_is_ , on the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit, a debuff in the full release of the game suggests Larian Studios were toying with the idea of including one of the more punishing mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (D&D 5e)—the tabletop ruleset the game's built on.

WoW's UI arms race rages on as Blizzard says they'll crack down on sparkly new combat overlays
https://www.pcgamer.com/wows-ui-arms-race-rages-on-as-blizzard-says-theyll-crack-down-on-sparkly-new-combat-overlays/
(...)
Last week, Wowhead made a news post highlighting some new overlay tech that was being used in raiding. These are different from your bog-standard UI mods in that they don't use the game's in-built addon support, and can be slapped over the game window or put on a separate monitor entirely.
(,,,)
Blizzard have finally addressed this in a thread on the World of Warcraft forums: "We intend to make changes to how the Advanced Combat Log is populated, in advance of Dragonflight Season 3, that will prevent its use in this way." Community manager Kaivax also cites section 1-C of the EULA, which has a few applicable sentences on the subject—particularly when it comes to software "not expressly authorised by Blizzard". Seeing as these overlays don't use the in-game addon system, this all seems straightforwardly forboden.

Microsoft rejigs $69bn Activision Blizzard deal to placate UK regulators, offers all cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft for 15 years
https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-rejigs-dollar69bn-activision-blizzard-deal-to-placate-uk-regulators-offers-all-cloud-gaming-rights-to-ubisoft-for-15-years/
Microsoft has made a new offer, one that president Brad Smith describes as a "substantially different transaction", in its effort to get its proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard over the finish line with the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority. The CMA had previously blocked the deal on grounds that included concerns about the nascent cloud gaming market, and the restructured deal will see all cloud rights to Activision Blizzard games signed over to Ubisoft for the next 15 years.

ASUS Intros World’s First 32″ 4K QD-OLED Gaming Display, Also Unveils 49″ Ultra-Wide ROG Swift OLED Panel

https://rog.asus.com/articles/gaming-monitors/the-rog-swift-oled-pg32ucdm-hits-the-sweet-spot-of-size-and-resolution/

https://wccftech.com/asus-worlds-first-32-4k-qd-oled-gaming-display-also-49-ultra-wide-rog-swift-oled/

AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D reviewed, the fastest gaming mobile CPU

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-9-7945hx3d-reviewed-the-fastest-gaming-mobile-cpu

ASUS Unleashes ROG Maximus Z790 DARK HERO, New STRIX & TUF Offerings With 14th Gen Intel CPU Support, WIFI 7 & More

https://wccftech.com/asus-rog-maximus-z790-dark-hero-strix-tuf-offerings-14th-gen-intel-cpu-support-wifi-7/

Nvidia is so far ahead with their software features while AMD hasn't even caught up to XeSS lmao

Yeah I mean I get people don't like Nvidia because all of the shennagans they have pulled the last few years. But the advances in tech are always so good and nearly always ahead of the curve in features and implementation. Without them pushing the industry forward we'd be way worse off. Like RT barely made it on consoles from AMD developing RDNA 2. Freesync>VRR may not be a thing.. so on and so fourth. Once Nvidia nails down RT performance with RTX 5000 and beyond I can see them pushing towards Pathtracing.

Really want to see AMD innovate more and put more resources into RTG. But alas... they're even falling behind Intel in the GPU department in some ways which is kind of embarrassing to see.

Yea Nvidia is effectively dominating the industry and cucking the competition by the sheer force of their software advancements. While Radeon shifts focus to get ROCm to catch up to Nvidia in the Datacenter space as Ai boom is on full throttle mode, Nvidia continues to advance both their Datacenter and Gaming space with more and more software features since they have the resources to do so.

This is what happens when you have a CEO like Jensen that doesn't let the company rest on their laurels. While AMD was focusing on getting out of near bankruptcy and trying to get Ryzen to be a success which basically lead to Radeon getting cucked and Intel having a leadership that would rather focus on smelling their own butthole than actually bringing innovation to the space... Nvidia has been trying to get Ai revolution on the backbone of Cuda ever since. And now they are reaping the rewards while neither Intel and AMD really has the software stack to compete. (Like yes Intel did have innovations like Optane, NUC, etc but nothing truly ground breaking imo)

In the gaming space, we are pretty much at a point where it's like when a person looks to buy a GPU, it's like how many features are you willing to lose? Cause that list keeps growing every 6 months. It's hard for Radeon to catch up because AMD wants that Datacenter money and it's hard for Intel to catch up cause they just started. So we are basically getting to the point of, buy the best Nvidia GPU that you can with the money that you have or buy a console.

I think Intel poached too many talents from them to create Archmage that AMD has a hard time getting enough good talents or needing too much time training them to keep up. Right now they're concentrating on drivers and readying the next GPUs and have the additional features basically as a side project since they can't afford or rather get a dedicated team of big enough size to compete with either Intel or NVidia.

If AMD can overcome this and come out swinging in the near future, I believe AMD can get Radeon back on track, otherwise it's gonna need NVidia royally fucking up before AMD get's any chance to come back from that.

The summary is quite simple: AMD is tiny compared to both Nvidia and Intel. We see it every time we get those diagrams showing the quarter and full year reports and we see how much money they use for R&D.

AMD is, more or less, big enough to compete in one field, but they'll have to grow a lot before they can start fighting on both fronts at the same time... if that ever happens.