The following are the Wednesday news, also known as the Gamescom opening night episode:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has five new Deals of the Day, that will last 46 hours:

• The first one is Giants: Citizen Kabuto, 20% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/giants_citizen_kabuto
• Black Academy, warning, NSFW, gets a 45% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/black_academy
• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus - Omnissiah Edition gets an 80% deal: https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_40000_mechanicus_omnissiah_edition
• Legacy of Kain: Defianceis 86% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/legacy_of_kain_defiance
• And the last one is Thief™ 3: Deadly Shadows, with an 89% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/thief_3

Steam has three new deals (to call them something) for us:

• There's a Gamescom 2023 page full of games, and a handful of them are on sale with up to 25% discounts until the 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/gamescom
• There's also the Indie Booth Arena 2023, also related to Gamescom, that features up to 55% discounts until the same August, 27th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/IndieArenaBooth2023
• And the game Project Highrise is going to be 76% off until the 29th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/423580/Project_Highrise/

Fanatical only has new Flash Deals that, as has been the norm during this sale, haven't launched on time. You'll have to check them out by yourselves.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Also Empty-

GAMING NEWS

Black Myth: Wukong looks beautiful in its Gamescom 2023 trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/black-myth-wukong-looks-beautiful-in-its-gamescom-2023-trailer/
Game Science has released the Gamescom 2023 gameplay trailer for Black Myth: Wukong. Black Myth: Wukong looks absolutely beautiful in this latest trailer, so be sure to watch it.

Here’s the Gamescom 2023 gameplay trailer for Crimson Desert
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/heres-the-gamescom-2023-gameplay-trailer-for-crimson-desert/
As promised, Pearl Abyss revealed a gameplay trailer for Crimson Desert at this year’s Gamescom 2023 Opening Night Live event. Crimson Desert looks absolutely incredible, sporting some of the best graphics we’ve seen.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage gets an official Gamescom 2023 trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/assassins-creed-mirage-gets-an-official-gamescom-2023-trailer/
Ubisoft has released the Gamescom 2023 trailer for its new AC game, Assassin’s Creed Mirage. This trailer gives us a look at the Round City at its height, complete with a full Arabic voiceover.

Here are 9 minutes of gameplay from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-9-minutes-of-gameplay-from-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3/
Activision has released a new video for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, showcasing 9 minutes of gameplay from it. This video shows off the game’s first campaign mission, in which Alpha team makes entry from the water as Bravo and Charlie teams assist in an operation conducted in the Kastovian Sea.

Tekken 8 will release in January 2024, gets Gamescom 2023 trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/tekken-8-will-release-in-january-2024-gets-gamescom-2023-trailer/
Bandai Namco has shared the Gamescom 2023 trailer for Tekken 8. Additionally, the publisher revealed that this fighting game will officially release on January 26th, 2024.

Alan Wake 2 gets an official Gamescom 2023 gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/alan-wake-2-gets-an-official-gamescom-2023-gameplay-trailer/
Remedy has released the Gamescom 2023 gameplay trailer for Alan Wake 2. This trailer focuses on Alan Wake himself and also includes some live-action sequences that the game will have. Yeap, similar to Quantum Break, Remedy has implemented live-action cut-scenes to the game.
>> And it will have full ray tracing, aka Path Tracing, on PC.

Nightdive announces remasters for Turok 3 and Star Wars: Dark Forces
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nightdive-announces-remasters-for-turok-3-and-star-wars-dark-forces/
Nightdive Studios has just announced the remasters for Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion and Star Wars: Dark Forces. These remasters will support 4K resolutions with 120fps as well as advanced 3D rendering features, and you can find below their debut trailers.

Gamescom 2023 trailers for Armored Core 6, Lords of the Fallen, Killing Floor 3, Mortal Kombat 1 and more
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/gamescom-2023-trailers-for-armored-core-6-lords-of-the-fallen-killing-floor-3-mortal-kombat-1-and-more/
A lot of trailers aired yesterday during the Gamescom 2023 Opening Night Live event. As such, we’ve decided to collect those that we haven’t shared and include them in one big article. So, below you can find the Gamescom 2023 trailers for Armored Core 6, Lords of the Fallen, Killing Floor 3, Mortal Kombat 1, Little Nightmares 3, Sonic Superstars and more!
>> There are another 10 videos, including a new Homeworld 3 story trailer.

Wednesday news, part two:

Valheim celebrates the launch of 'hard mode' by offering up a custom-made viking tankard for the fastest and hardest speedrunner
https://www.pcgamer.com/valheim-celebrates-launch-of-hard-mode-by-offering-up-a-custom-made-viking-tankard-for-the-fastest-and-hardest-speedrunner/
A patch for the open world survival game Valheim went live on the public test server back in June that, among other things, added world modifiers that enable players to change the game's difficulty in various ways. With that update, called Hildir's Request, now fully live, developer Iron Gate is celebrating in an appropriately viking-ish fashion with the Trial of Tyr, a speedrun competition that challenges players to race through the entire game—in hard mode—on their own.

Konami confuses things further, now says Metal Gear Solid collection will run at 1080p and 60 fps
https://www.pcgamer.com/konami-confuses-things-further-now-says-metal-gear-solid-collection-will-run-at-1080p-and-60fps/
In scenes reminiscent of a convoluted codec conversation, Konami has been tying itself up in knots about what exactly players can expect from Metal Gear Solid: The Master Collection Vol. 1. It's now issued a statement to VGC clarifying the target spec for the games is 1080p and 60 fps on PC, following erroneous reports (based on what Konami reps said) that the games would be running at lower resolutions and framerates.
Note that this still leaves it clear as mud as to whether these games will be rendering at 1080p or merely outputting at 1080p. Based on what Konami reps told PCG's Wes Fenlon at a recent hands-on, the former seems unlikely: There's no way Metal Gear Solid is rendering at 1080p, with the resolution seeming to be the original 240p or a similarly low resolution.

Starfield has 'a lot of surprises that we haven't talked about,' Todd Howard says at Gamescom
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-has-a-lot-of-surprises-that-we-havent-talked-about-todd-howard-says-at-gamescom/
Gamescom's Opening Night Live showcase kicked off with a brand-new live action trailer for Starfield and an appearance by game director Todd Howard, who said that despite everything we've been shown so far, there are still "a lot of surprises" in store.

Destiny 2 is scrapping its current seasonal model in favour of three 'episodes' per year
https://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2-is-scrapping-its-current-seasonal-model-in-favour-of-three-episodes-per-year/
Bungie is making a big change to the way it tells stories in Destiny 2. The seasonal model the game has employed so far is being dropped in favor of "episodes," which will provide players with larger chunks of standalone storytelling that the studio says will deliver "a new, innovative way for players to engage with Destiny 2 throughout the year."

Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion will add new Arc, Solar and Void supers
https://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2s-the-final-shape-expansion-will-add-new-arc-solar-and-void-supers/
Bungie just wrapped up a showcase in which it pulled the curtain back on The Final Shape, the concluding expansion in the saga that has been running since Destiny launched way back in 2014. Last week, game director Joe Blackburn was at pains to point out that this livestream was intended to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, but when you've got developers giddily dropping lines like: "The Witness wants to use the Pale Heart of The Traveller to enact the Final Shape", I think it's fair to say that there's still quite a lot to unpick, even for veteran players like me. Having watched the showcase, here's the stuff that stood out.

One of our favorite action RPGs of 2019 shows off 4 years of updates at Gamescom
https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-our-favorite-action-rpgs-of-2019-shows-off-4-years-of-updates-at-gamescom/
We liked the action-RPG Last Epoch an awful lot when we most recently looked at it, calling its skill system "a brilliant new twist" on those offered by Diablo and Path of Exile. But that was in 2019, and we haven't heard anything from the game since—until tonight, when Judd Cobler, founder and CEO of developer Eleventh Hour Games, appeared on the stage at Gamescom's Opening Night Live to show off its upcoming Runes of Power update and the powerful new Runemaster mage class.

I'm begging MiHoYo to show me more Zenless Zone Zero than this
https://www.pcgamer.com/im-begging-mihoyo-to-show-me-more-zenless-zone-zero-than-this/
It takes some real detective work to figure out the mystery that is Zenless Zone Zero, the upcoming action (roguelike?) game from Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo.

Diablo 4's long-desired loot filters are 'definitely part of our backlog', says general manager
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4s-long-desired-loot-filters-are-definitely-part-of-our-backlog-says-general-manager/
Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant proceeds apace, and it's been quite the journey of patches after its rocky introduction in July—it's had horse buffs, weird multiversal glitches, and some genuine improvements to enemy density. The waves might be choppy, but the SS Sanctuary isn't sunk just yet.
Another glimmer of hope has surfaced on the horizon—it's either a sign of good things to come, or a frustrating half-answer to the absence of a much-desired quality of life feature. Loot filters are pretty bog standard for ARPGs at this point—which left plenty baffled when Diablo 4 launched without one comprehensive enough to handle its late-game load of loot.

Diablo 4 Season 2 revealed: It's about vampires, and will include some much-requested updates
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-season-2-revealed-its-about-vampires-and-will-include-some-much-requested-updates/
Vampires will be the next threat in Diablo 4: They're coming in the second season, which Blizzard has dubbed the "Season of Blood."
Starting on October 17 in Diablo 4's Seasonal Realm, you'll create a new character and gain "vampiric powers" to battle against swarms of vampires. Each of the classes seem to have new modifications to their skills in the Gamescom Opening Night Live trailer. If it's like Season 1, you'll loot powerful season-specific items that augment your abilities.

How to watch the Future Games Show at Gamescom livestream
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-watch-the-future-games-show-at-gamescom-livestream/
From our friends at GamesRadar+, the Future Games Show at Gamescom returns tomorrow with a bunch of games to show off, including Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin, Tiny Glade, and Star Trucker.
Hosted by Troy Baker (The Last of Us) and Erika Ishii (Apex Legends), the show will include "eight world premieres," a VR showcase, and a segment dedicated to games that will have demos you can play after the show.
>> That tomorrow is today.

Killing Floor 3 is a 'gruesome graphical vision' in Unreal Engine 5
https://www.pcgamer.com/killing-floor-3-is-a-gruesome-graphical-vision-in-unreal-engine-5/
Someone's finally done it: they put the number three on a co-op zombie FPS.
Valve is of course allergic to the number, stopping at Left 4 Dead 2, and that series was spiritually continued by Turtle Rock with Back 4 Blood, whose name alludes to it being the fourth game in the co-op zombie FPS series, despite no third game existing. It started to feel like the number really was cursed, but Tripwire has now grounded us with the announcement of Killing Floor 3 at Gamescom. No tricks: just the third game in a series of good co-op zombie shooters.

Typical Valve: Left 4 Dead 2 gets a 'minor update' with notes as long as your arm, and names an alligator
https://www.pcgamer.com/typical-valve-left-4-dead-2-gets-a-minor-update-with-notes-as-long-as-your-arm-and-names-an-alligator/
Valve has released a new update for Left 4 Dead 2 showing that, whatever the fans may think, someone over there is certainly paying attention to all their complaints. It makes substantial, not-so-substantial, and in some cases slightly bonkers changes to the game. Try this on for size: "Restored the knife's original horizontal swing trajectory." Knife is once more the best! Though the skillet will always hold a special place in my heart.

Cult of the Lamb gets a cool crossover with one of our favourite survival games
https://www.pcgamer.com/cult-of-the-lamb-turns-into-a-survival-game-as-part-of-a-crossover-with-dont-starve-together/
The maudlin, fantastical, and rather excellent survival game Don't Starve launched in 2013, followed three years later by co-op sequel Don't Starve Together. For the game's 10th anniversary developer Klei Entertainment has announced a two-way collaboration with 2022's brilliant Cult of the Lamb, a roguelike town sim with a winningly grim sense of humour that's an all-timer in the "one more hour at 2am" category. Both games are receiving content based on the other, and Cult of the Lamb especially has gone all-in.

Wi-Fi 7 Isn’t Supported By Windows 10, Only Works With Windows 11, Linux & ChromeOS

https://wccftech.com/wi-fi-7-not-supported-by-windows-10-only-works-with-windows-11-linux-chromeos/

Very scummy of MS

AMD Teases Upcoming “Enthusiast” Radeon RX 7000 GPU, First Look At New Reference Design

https://wccftech.com/amd-teases-upcoming-enthusiast-radeon-rx-7000-gpu-first-look-new-reference-design/

Lenovo Legion Go Handheld With AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU & LPDDR5-7500 Memory Leaks Out

https://wccftech.com/lenovo-legion-go-handheld-with-amd-ryzen-z1-extreme-apu-lpddr5-7500-memory-leaks-out/

That display is so unnecessary

Samsung Unveils Odyssey Neo G9 57″ & Odyssey ARK 55″ Displays: Up To Dual UHD, 240Hz, Freesync Premium Pro

https://wccftech.com/samsung-unveils-odyssey-neo-g9-57-odyssey-ark-55-displays-up-to-dual-uhd-240hz/

Samsung Receives Huge Order of HBM3 Memory To Power AMD MI300X GPUs

https://wccftech.com/samsung-receives-huge-order-of-hbm3-memory-to-power-amd-mi300x-gpus/

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/15z160e/made_what_i_think_is_a_better_version_of_the_dlss/

Nvidia's DLSS naming scheme is getting very dumb so a user on reddit made it easier to understand wtf is going on.

Time stamped as it is an interesting discussion about how really an increasingly large amount of games, especially UE5 titles are relying on upscaling to achieve good fps even on 4090. And the reasoning is that the engines are being built around scaling on a per pixel level so an increase in resolution by going from 1440p to 4k requires a significant increase in brute force to achieve Native rendering. Due to this, UE5 is built around the idea of rendering at a much lower resolution and upscaling as that is what Epic intends for every UE5 game regardless of the hardware it's running on.

Yea pretty much. Radeon has two main issues they need to fix and Nvidia has one big issue that if they do not overcome, Radeon will have a chance to take the crown in a lot of fronts.

The first issue from Radeon is the interconnect technology for GCDs when it comes to gaming. This isn't something Radeon can just fix because you need very exotic and expensive materials to make the interconnects not shit the bed but a ton of R&D is being put into it not just by Radeon, but by Intel, TSMC, etc. The second issue is their software stack. Their datacenter GPUs with chiplet designs are pretty great but most companies won't even consider it because the race to Ai means the more time you waste on trying to get software working, the more time advantage and "first to the market" advantage the competition has. GPUs at the end of the day are tools and if for Radeon, you are having issues with ROCm and other things while with Nvidia, the software stack is much more feature rich, stable and well integrated into industry standard software... It's easy to see why companies are spending Billions into H100s.

But Nvidia does have one big issue and that is the monowall. The largest die area a monolith GPU can have is around 800mm² which is what all top end datacenter GPUs from Nvidia has been. Gaming GPUs have been around 600mm² with the exception of the 2080 Ti that was around 750mm². Up until now, the node shrinks have been going at a steady enough pace but now they are slowing down drastically. This means that Nvidia will soon hit a wall as to how many more transistors and such they can fit inside that die area. So you have AMD who has been at the forefront of chiplet design and even Intel is coming out with GPUs with chiplet designs in the data center. But Nvidia has been lagging behind and soon will hit a brick wall. So far it's been fine because they can use their Nvlink switches and "connect" other GPUs together but this is more of a bandaid than anything.

So that is basically Radeons chance. If the interconnect technology is advanced enough for GCDs to work in gaming and Radeons software stack catches up or is close enough to Nvidia in the datacenter and Nvidia lags behind in chiplet design and hits that monowall... Radeon can certainly dominate the GPU market by sheer brute force.

But as they say, never bet against Nvidia cause Jensen has proven to know what he is doing. And it's not like Nvidia aren't putting a lot of R&D into chiplets themselves. So we will see what happens.

Not surprising coming from Microsoft.  They also don't officially support the 6ghz band of wifi 6e.  It even worse because there a beta version of drivers that does support it but when they made the final release it was removed.  Therefore all the work is done to support it they just made a decision not too in order to push more people to windows 11.  

Jesus Christ that's nuts. Even gaming revenue is up.

Alright fine, gaming is dead

Well, there you have it.

That's what you get when you combine clueless CEOs and director boards wanting to invest in AI (no clear plan on how or why, they just want to) and a company selling Hoppers with over 1000% markups on production costs.

*** NEW CONTEST ***

NVIDIA Is Giving Away A Custom Alan Wake II GeForce RTX 4090 GPU For Free
https://wccftech.com/nvidia-giving-away-custom-alan-wake-ii-geforce-rtx-4090-gpu-for-free/

NVIDIA has teamed up with Remedy Entertainment to give away a unique and rare Alan Wake II-inspired GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

NVIDIA and Remedy have teamed up to giveaway an Alan Wake II-inspired GeForce RTX 4090 GPU which looks absolutely gorgeous with its uniquely themed backplate. You continue in Alan Wake's footsteps, 13 years after the original game made its debut and it takes its psychological thriller and horror roots one step further.

The pool of prizes is:

• (x2) GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition ($1599 MSRP)
• (x2) GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition ($1199 MSRP)
• (x1) GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition ($399 MSRP)
• (x164) GeForce RTX 4060 (Manufacturer varies) ($299 MSRP)
• (x3) Custom GPU Backplate (Style Varies) with a RTX 4090 Founders Edition GPU ($1,789 MSRP)
• (x2) G-SYNC Displays (ASUS 1440p 360 Hz G-SYNC with Reflex displays) ($1,049 MSRP)
• (x1) GeForce RTX Garage 4090 Build  ($7,500 MSRP)

You should check the article to find out if you can take part in this contest or not.

Good luck.