I'd get the Ryzen. Intel + lower battery capacity will make you question why you got a laptop in the first place. I'd only get a Macbook if you have enough funds to get their 14 Pro or 16 Pro otherwise yea they have great battery but too many compromises and not enough benefits.

Stepping down? More like the board showed him the door.

The Tuesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

(Click here for the top 100)

GOG has launched its Weekly Sale, with up to 90% discounts during 6 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/weekly_deals_2_october.

Steam has launched a new Steam Fest, but that hasn't stopped them from launching new sales and weeklong deals:

• The Kalypso Media Publisher Sale 2023 features up to 75% discounts until October, 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/KalypsoMediaPublisherSale2023
• The Ghost Recon franchise goes on sale with up to 80% discounts until the 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/GhostReconFranchise
• Warhammer 40,000: Darktide will be 35% off until the 18th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361210/Warhammer_40000_Darktide/
• Pharaoh: A New Era is going to be 30% off until October, 23rd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1351080/Pharaoh_A_New_Era/
• And here's a small sample of the weeklong deals:
  • Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons will be 15% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1967260/Double_Dragon_Gaiden_Rise_Of_The_Dragons/
  • STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life gets a 30% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111170/STORY_OF_SEASONS_A_Wonderful_Life/
  • What Comes After is going to be half its price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1421760/What_Comes_After/
  • Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX, that has a demo, gets a 66% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1333470/Alex_Kidd_in_Miracle_World_DX/
  • Lost Words: Beyond the Page is going to be 77% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/599610/Lost_Words_Beyond_the_Page/
  • And the last one, Tetraminos, with a 90% deal: https://store.steampowered.com/app/539280/Tetraminos/

The Humble Store has two new sales:

• The Team17 Fall Sale brings up to 90% discounts during 6 days. There are keys for Steam and direct downloads: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/team17-fall-sale/
• The Survive the Terror Sale features up to 90% discounts and, while some deals will last up to 13 days, most will last only 6. There are keys for Steam, EGS and also some direct downloads: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/survive-the-terror-sale/

And Fanatical's new Star Deal is SUPERHOT VR, 69% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/superhot-vr.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

INTEL Arc & Iris Graphics 31.0.101.4887
https://videocardz.com/driver/intel-arc-iris-graphics-31-0-101-4887
HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Support for Intel® Arc™ A580 Graphics.

GAMING HIGHLIGHTS:
Intel® Game On Driver support on Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics for:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Beta
• Total War: PHARAOH
• Lords of the Fallen

Game performance improvements versus Intel® 31.0.101.4885 software driver for:

• Starfield (DX12)
  • Up to 117% uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings
  • Up to 149% uplift at 1440p with High settings
• Forza Motorsport (DX12)
  • Up to 8% uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings

Game performance improvements versus Intel® 31.0.101.4826 software driver for<br/ >

• F1 23 (DX12)
  • Up to 12% uplift at 1440p with Ultra High settings
  • Up to 136% uplift at 2160p with Ultra High settings

Fixed Issues
Intel® Arc™ Graphics Products:

• Minecraft (DX12) may exhibit color corruptions in night scenes when ray tracing setting is on.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 537.58
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-537-58
Highlights
Game Ready for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS technology. This includes the launch of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Open Beta, Forza Motorsport, and Lords of the Fallen.

Fixed Issues
Fixed Gaming Bugs

• Add Microsoft Store/Xbox Game Pass application profile for Lies of P [4290286]

Fixed General Bugs

• [GeForce RTX 4060] GPU monitoring utilities reporting incorrect idle power usage [4186490]
• Increased DPC latency may be observed when GPU is connected over HDMI 2.1 FRL at 10bpc/12bpc [4253581]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

You can now download a cool Halo-inspired Mod for Doom 3
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/you-can-now-download-a-cool-halo-inspired-mod-for-doom-3/
Modder ‘Valkyries7331’ has released a cool mod for Doom 3 with the goal of putting the events of Doom 3 in the Halo Universe. What this means is that the mod adds weapons, character models, items, and lore elements from Halo in Doom 3.
For those wondering, this Halo-inspired Mod does not introduce any enemies from Bungie’s titles. Instead, you’ll be fighting your usual cacodemons, lost souls, imps, knights of hell, and all the monsters that are already available in Doom 3.
There is really nothing more to add here. If you enjoyed Halo and Doom 3, we strongly suggest giving this mod a go. After all, it mashes up these two games into one horror experience.
>> The article has an almost 3 minutes video of the mod.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl gets an AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/stalker-shadow-of-chernobyl-gets-an-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack/
Modder ‘ketxxx’ has released an AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. This pack improves all of the game’s textures while also retaining their original art style.
Going into more details, this HD Texture Pack takes all of the vanilla textures, normalparallax maps and remasters them to 2x, 4x, or 8x their original resolution, while also taking into consideration the type of texture and the size of mesh andor level geometry it is applied to.
This mod also comes with a few quality-of-life improvements. For instance, traders can now repair weapons and armor. Additionally, ketxxx has included OGSR 2.1.320 to preserve maximum compatibility and usability for users. OGSR 2.1.320 also adds support for DX9,10,11 renderers). Furthermore, the pack comes with the ABC Sleeping Mod and Stalker Weather Overhauled v3.1.
>> The article has some screenshots.

Half-Life 2 gets a 6.8GB AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/half-life-2-gets-an-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack/
Modder ‘deeppurple1968’ has released a new AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for Half-Life 2. This pack upscales all of the game’s textures by four times using the neural network Topaz A.I. Gigapixel.
Moreover, this mod partially includes higher resolution upscaled files from Half Life 2 High Quality Texture Replacements, Garry’s Mod NPC Enhancements, HQ 2k Airboat texture, HL2 High-Quality Main Character Skin Pack and some leaked texture sources. All of these custom textures have been adjusted and are fully consistent with the original HL2 textures.
>> There's a roughly 2 minutes video of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

Starfield Patch 1.7.36 adds FOV sliders & improves stability on Intel GPUs
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/starfield-patch-1-7-36-adds-fov-sliders-improves-stability-on-intel-gpus/
Bethesda has just released a new patch for Starfield that adds FOV sliders and improves the game’s stability on Intel’s graphics cards. Moreover, it fixes an issue where tunneling creatures could pick a location that would prevent progression.

Flasback 2 gets an official story trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/flasback-2-gets-an-official-story-trailer/
Microids has released the official story trailer for Flashback 2, a thrilling adventure bringing the legendary Flashback franchise back to life in all its glory.

Square Enix has removed Denuvo from the HD-2D Remake of LIVE A LIVE
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/square-enix-has-removed-denuvo-from-the-hd-2d-remake-of-live-a-live/
Square Enix has just removed the Denuvo anti-tamper tech from its HD-2D Remake of LIVE A LIVE. LIVE A LIVE was released in April 2023, meaning that it took Square Enix almost six months in order to remove it.

Lords of the Fallen will support DLSS 3 and FSR 3.0 at launch
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/lords-of-the-fallen-will-support-dlss-3-and-fsr-3-0-at-launch/
It appears that CI Games’ upcoming Souls-like game, Lords of the Fallen, will officially support DLSS 3 Frame Generation. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Lords of the Fallen promises to offer amazing graphics. As such, it’s great news to see support for DLSS 3. Moreover, the game will support AMD FSR 3.0 at launch.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor Patch 7.5 released and detailed
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/star-wars-jedi-survivor-patch-7-5-released-and-detailed/
Respawn has just released a new update for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. According to the release notes, Update 7.5 packs a couple of fixes and improves the quality of reflections when Ray Tracing is disabled.

Tuesday news, the second part:

Indie dev behind beloved boomerang shooter shuts down because 'we are out of money'
https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-dev-behind-beloved-boomerang-shooter-shuts-down-because-we-are-out-of-money/
The New York-based indie studio Dang is closing after releasing only one game, but what a game. The hyper-fast and movement-focused Boomerang X released in 2021 and was notable among other things for supporting an experimental type of gyro controller, the Flick Stick, as well as mouse-and-keyboard, so that players could whizz its deadly shuriken-boomerang around in the fanciest of patterns. The game sits with around 800 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews on Steam though, judging by this announcement, that sadly didn't translate to sales.

Check out mindbending puzzles in The Talos Principle 2's specially made demo
https://www.pcgamer.com/check-out-mindbending-puzzles-in-the-talos-principle-2s-specially-made-demo/
The demo for The Talos Principle 2 is out now, building steam in the hype engine for what will probably be the premier first-person puzzler of 2023. Developers Croteam have made it special for you, standalone and set apart from the final game's flow and puzzles.

Daedalic's bizarre Gollum apology was apparently written by ChatGPT and the studio didn't even get approval on it
https://www.pcgamer.com/daedelics-bizarre-gollum-apology-was-apparently-written-by-chatgpt-and-the-studio-didnt-even-get-approval-on-it/
One of 2023's big disappointments was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a stealth-action adventure from the established German studio Daedalic. (...)
(...far, far below...)
Such things contributed to the reaction being so negative (the argument system had been a part of trailers), which soon acquired such fervour that Daedalic issued a bizarre apology for the game. Except it turns out this wasn't from the studio at all.
Daedelic says that this apology was not from Daedalic but from Nacon, the game's publisher and owner of Daedalic, which had clearly been spooked. Even at the time people picked up on some of the apology's wording as being meaningless and noted things like the game's name being misspelled: turns out that's almost certainly because it was written by ChatGPT (timestamp), and Daedalic didn't even get pre-approval on its own apology.

Build some sick castles in the demo for fantasy survival game Enshrouded
https://www.pcgamer.com/build-some-sick-castles-in-the-demo-for-fantasy-survival-game-enshrouded/
A demo for fantasy survival game Enshrouded has hit for this October's Steam Next Fest, and the action-RPG survival adventure is looking pretty good for fans of having cool fights, surviving the wilds, and building sick castles.

RuneScape fans chalk up 'a small victory for the players' as developer chucks new and hated battle pass in the trash
https://www.pcgamer.com/runescape-fans-chalk-up-a-small-victory-for-the-players-as-developer-chucks-new-and-hated-battle-pass-in-the-trash/
RuneScape has announced that it's ditching its new battle pass system barely a month after it debuted, calling it "not reflective of a direction we're taking RuneScape in" following widespread player uproar.

Ubisoft's XDefiant was supposed to launch this month, but is delayed (again)
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisofts-xdefiant-was-supposed-to-launch-this-month-but-is-delayed-again/
Ubisoft's free-to-play competitive FPS XDefiant, surely a contender for the silliest game name in history (sorry Warface), has announced another delay following a recent public playtest. The game was due to launch with a "Preseason" this month but, following what the developers describe as "inconsistencies in the game experience", has been delayed to an unspecified date.

Activision reminds fans they'll need to get their wallets out for Modern Warfare 3, says its games won't hit Game Pass until next year at the earliest
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-reminds-fans-theyll-need-to-get-their-wallets-out-for-modern-warfare-3-says-its-games-wont-hit-game-pass-until-next-year-at-the-earliest/
Unless the FTC's Lina Khan runs in at the last minute to physically tackle Bobby Kotick before he can sign anything, it's looking very likely that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will close in the very near future. I mean very near, you understand, as in possibly this Friday, pending word from the UK market regulator. But if you think that heralds the imminent arrival of games like Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 4 on Microsoft's Game Pass service, Activision has news for you: It doesn't.

Counter-Strike 2 fixes hitbox issues with crouchers, and more importantly makes knife spinning feel a bit faster
https://www.pcgamer.com/counter-strike-2-fixes-hitbox-issues-with-crouchers-and-more-importantly-makes-knife-spinning-feel-a-bit-faster/
Valve has achieved something remarkable with Counter-Strike 2, and has done it almost under-the-radar. The developer has managed to transition one of the largest and most change-averse competitive playerbases around from CS:GO to CS2 without any significant pushback, large-scale complaining, or splitting that playerbase. (...)
CS2 is still not the finished product, of course, and never will be: support for this game can be expected to last over the next decade. And there are various small glitches that somehow made it through, prime among which is a hitbox alignment issue around crouching in particular. In CS2 this has tended to occur when a player defuses the bomb, because the CT character model crouches over the object, and something funky happens with the head hitboxes (...)
A new patch fixes "several hitbox alignment bugs", so precision AK shots on a defuser are back on the menu, though as ever with Valve there's no further detail on the specifics of the bugs. This comes alongside various minor fixes to glitches with weapon inspections and certain skins not displaying correctly, though the funniest element of this patch is a cosmetic tweak: players had been complaining about how fast the knives spin.

NVIDIA 2024-2025 data-center roadmap lists GB200 and GX200 next-gen GPUs

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-2024-2025-data-center-roadmap-lists-gh200-gb200-and-gx200-next-gen-gpus

Intel Core i9-14900K is 2% faster on average than Ryzen 9 7950X3D in official 1080p gaming performance slide

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-i9-14900k-is-2-faster-on-average-than-ryzen-9-7950x3d-in-official-1080p-gaming-performance-slide

Useless lol

AMD Announces Acquisition of Nod.ai, Plans to Rapidly Improve AI Resources

https://wccftech.com/amd-announces-acquisition-of-nod-ai-plans-to-rapidly-improve-ai-resources/

AMD has been buying quite a few Ai companies which should give Nvidia some much needed competition

Intel Arc A580 8 GB Graphics Card Officially Launched: Aiming 1080p Gaming Masses At $179

https://wccftech.com/intel-arc-a580-8-gb-graphics-card-launched-aiming-1080p-gaming-masses-179-usd/

It certainly feels good seeing a GPU launch at sub $200

ASRock Arc A580 Challenger Review

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asrock-arc-a580-challenger/32.html

1080p relative performance:

They really couldn't find a way to redesign the bluray drive version so it doesn't look like a Tumour?

Also:

Uhh excuse me? The original included both. Why do we need to pay more for the vertical stand wtf?

Wasn't it the same stand that could be used to put the PS5 both in horizontal and vertical? The new model with its similar but not same shape may make that option harder to make, and why spending more money and R&D on it when you can actually make money selling a stand for one of its positions?

Also, I don't think the side covers launched for the actual models will work with this ones.

Anyway, I like that AMD is actually spending money to strengthen its AI capabilities. They'll need all the help they can.

And that 4080 is a good(-ish) deal and I think we'll see more often in the coming months.

I'd love to help, but my knowledge on laptops and laptop hardware is almost zero.

Jizz's advice seems well reasoned, tho. I'd go with his choice.

Lmao that looks worse than current PS5's as aesthetics go. Don't know how they managed that. At least the storage has been updated to a reasonable amount.

Looking at these prices, I'm sure now the PS5 Pro will be adorably all digital and retail for $599.