GeForce RTX 4090 hits $2,000/€2,000 average price

https://videocardz.com/newz/geforce-rtx-4090-hits-2000-e2000-average-price

I paid $2000 for my Strix version before it was cool

ASUS makes unexpected GPU fusion: RTX 4090 as eGPU through RTX 4060 Ti’s M.2 slot

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-makes-unexpected-gpu-fusion-rtx-4090-as-egpu-through-rtx-4060-tis-m-2-slot

Pointless? yes. Interesting? Also yes

Intel Core Ultra 7 155H Arc iGPU surpasses Radeon 780M, new leaked OpenCL result shows

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-ultra-7-155h-arc-igpu-surpasses-radeon-780m-new-leaked-opencl-result-shows

Keep in mind Arc had very good performance numbers in synthetic tests before it released and it turned out to under-perform in many real world tests

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 will not be ‘replaced’ with the SUPER version, both models expected to coexist

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-will-not-be-replaced-with-the-super-version-both-models-expected-to-coexist#disqus_thread

Best news out of this is that mobile is finally dropping! Take that, whalers!

Plus, mobile GPUs are very bandwidth-limited. If Intel used something like DDR5-6400 or even LPDDR5-7500, then of course it can beat the 780M in those tests which is limited to DDR5-5600.

Looks like they all bought their Genshin waifus on PC instead of mobile this quarter the $1b or so revenue swap between the platforms backs up my claim!

Interesting growth patterns for sure.

I'm kind of tempted to actually try Diablo IV, but at 90 GB, I think I can't be bothered to actually download it, since there's a pretty good chance I won't play it anyway during the time it's free. Besides, I'm sure I wouldn't buy it anyway, regardless of whether I liked it or not.

It's official: Valve can count to 3.

At least in the Half-Life documentary:

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Win a Remnant 2-styled Stream Deck, Game Codes, and a cool hat to celebrate the launch of The Awakened King DLC
https://www.pcgamer.com/win-a-remnant-2-styled-stream-deck-game-codes-and-a-cool-hat-to-celebrate-the-launch-of-the-awakened-king-dlc/
With the launch of Remnant 2's first DLC, The Awakened King, Gunfire Games has partnered with Gearbox Publishing and Elgato to choose five lucky travellers, who'll receive a bundle of prizes via a giveaway on the PC Gamer forums.
I've recently had a blast playing through Remnant 2's DLC, so I can highly recommend entering for the code alone. The Awakened King adds a whole new adventure through the world of Losomn—new areas, bosses, items, weapons, and a new Ritualist archetype.
Thanks to Gunfire Games, Elgato, and Gearbox Publishing, you'll be able to enter a giveaway for a chance of winning a prize. Well, three prizes, actually: A Remnant 2-branded Elgato Stream Deck with a custom faceplate design, a Remnant 2 Ultimate edition key (which gives you access to The Awakened King, as well as two future DLCs), and a cool hat—the same worn by the Handler archetype in-game.

Grand Prize (for 5 winners)

• One exclusive Remnant II-branded Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 device, with a custom faceplate design.
• One Remnant II Ultimate Edition Steam Key (the ultimate edition grants instant access to Awakened King DLC and the next two DLCs planned for Remnant 2).
• One Remnant II Handler Archetype Hat.

Runner-Up Prize (for 5 winners)

• One Remnant II Standard Edition Steam Key.
• One Remnant II: The Awakened King DLC Steam Key.

Those reusable Epic Games Store coupons are back for Black Friday, and the discount is even bigger this time
https://www.pcgamer.com/those-reusable-epic-games-store-coupons-are-back-for-black-friday-and-the-discount-is-even-bigger-this-time/
Black Friday is upon us in full force, and that means pretty much every digital storefront you care to name is having a big sale. The Epic Games Store is no exception, and for Black Friday it's once again brought back the Epic Coupon, which applies an automatic discount to every purchase you make. And this time, it's jacked up that discount amount to an impressive 33% off.
Epic's sales don't typically offer discounts on individual games that are as deep as those seen on Steam or GOG, both of which have their own seasonal sales currently underway. Instead, it throws in an across-the-board "digital coupon" that applies to eligible purchases (games, but not DLC or in-game items or currency) that cost $14.99 (or your local equivalent) or more. Everybody gets the coupon, and it automatically renews after use—it's effectively a standing discount for the duration of the sale.
(...)
Epic has also boosted its Epic Rewards program: It normally gives customers 5% of their eligible purchases back in the form of "rewards" that can be put toward future purchases, but for the duration of the Black Friday sale that's been increased to 10%. So if you buy a $50 game, you'll get a $5 credit you can put toward your next purchase.
>> Meanwhile, this week they're giving away Deliver Us Mars: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/deliver-us-mars https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/deliver-us-mars.
Next week, they'll give away Jitsu Squad and Mighty Fight Federation.

Fanatical has four new 24 hours Flash Deals and a bundle:

• These are the Flash Deals:
  • UNCHARTED™: Legacy of Thieves Collection is 49% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/uncharted-legacy-of-thieves-collection
  • Digimon Survive gets a 73% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/digimon-survive
  • The Star Wars Collection Bundle is 81% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/star-wars-collection
  • The last one is Iron Harvest, with an 85% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/iron-harvest
• The BYO Play On the Go Bundle Winter Edition has 16 titles to choose from for your 3, 5 or 8 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-play-on-the-go-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Uncharted The Lost Legacy gets an amazing Tomb Raider Mod
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/uncharted-the-lost-legacy-gets-an-amazing-tomb-raider-mod/
And it finally happened. Modder ‘Swiz19’ has just shared an amazing mod for Uncharted The Lost Legacy that brings to it Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series.
This mod basically replaces Chloe Frazer with Lara Croft. As such, Uncharted will now feel like a Tomb Raider game. This series started as a “Tomb Raider clone“, so playing as Lara Croft makes kind of sense. Unfortunately, though, the mod does not alter Chloe’s voice. Thus, I hope that a future version of this mod will use AI tools in order to achieve that.
This Tomb Raider mod features three outfits for Lara. These outfits are inspired by previous games and movies. So, you can find a classic outfit, as well as one from Cradle of Life and one from Angel of Darkness.
Lara’s jeep has been also changed from red to blue, inspired by The Last Revelations. All of the gear (rope, piton, & flashlight) is hidden, and all of the weapons are holstered when hidden (except for the dual pistols which are always present).
>> There's a 40 minutes video of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

First-person single-player RPG, The Golden Horde, will be now using Unreal Engine 5
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-person-single-player-rpg-the-golden-horde-will-be-now-using-unreal-engine-5/
Doomers Entertainment has just revealed that its new game, The Golden Horde, will be now using Unreal Engine 5. To make things even better, they dropped a new teaser trailer to celebrate. So, go ahead and check it out.

First screenshots released for a new official Tribes game
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/first-screenshots-released-for-a-new-official-tribes-game/
Prophecy Games is currently working on a new Tribes game, and it has shared the first screenshots from it. These are screenshots from an early build, so don’t expect them to wow you. Still, they can at least give you an idea of the game’s art style.

Thursday news, part two:

World of Warcraft player gets visited by benevolent twink 'Boostlord', a level 10 monster mage juiced up on funky dungeon scaling
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-player-gets-visited-by-benevolent-twink-boostlord-a-level-10-monster-mage-juiced-up-on-funky-dungeon-scaling/
Since World of Warcraft's release, "twinks" have been a problem. For those familiar enough with gay culture to be scandalised, I promise that's the actual MMORPG lingo. A twink in an MMO is a low-level character you pour a bunch of effort (and typically money) into, giving them absurdly powerful gear—proportionately, at least. Etymology lessons will come later.
It's usually used to dunk on people in PvP. The twinks I know would grab an alt character, level them to 19, kit them out, and run rampant. This happened so often during my time with Vanilla WoW that I still get a fight or flight response when I see anyone with those freaking goggles on. If you know, you know.
Nowadays, though, some gamers are twinking for good. (...)
>> I'll leave it here, Check the article to learn more.

The reason we got Left 4 Dead 2 as a standalone game was because the first one 'was such a broken thing that nobody wanted to touch it'
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-reason-we-got-left-4-dead-2-as-a-standalone-game-was-because-the-first-one-was-such-a-broken-thing-that-nobody-wanted-to-touch-it/
It was Left 4 Dead 2's birthday two days ago, marking 14 years since the release of our 70th top PC game of all time. It's all a distant memory now, but that game's announcement originally drew a fair bit of heat from fans, even sparking one of our hobby's many doomed fan boycott movements. Releasing almost exactly a year after L4D1, some fans felt that Valve had betrayed them. Where was the long tail of development for the first game? Why was the studio moving on to something entirely new instead of integrating L4D2's content into the first game?
Well, it turns out there's an answer to that, and it's because L4D1 was so spectacularly broken no one at Valve dared touch it. So says Chet Faliszek, former Left 4 Dead lead and current lead on The Anacrusis, in a recent chat with Game Developer.

PUBG is getting an extraction shooter spinoff next year
https://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-is-getting-an-extraction-shooter-spinoff-next-year/
The house that PUBG: Battlegrounds built is branching out from battle royale. Krafton announced in its latest financial report that its latest game from PUBG Studios is "Project Black Budget," an extraction shooter planned to release in the second half of 2024.

Classic Digimon fans are digging this creature catching RPG I almost missed last week
https://www.pcgamer.com/classic-digimon-fans-are-digging-this-creature-catching-rpg-i-almost-missed-last-week/
Just like with cozy farm sims, there are way more monster-taming PC games to choose from than there were only a few years ago. It's easy to miss some of the smaller contenders, so I'm glad I managed to catch Anode Heart. This monster taming RPG launched just last week and, based on what I've played in its demo, is doing a great job channelling the good old aughts.

Six months after rebooting Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, Ubisoft says it's coming along nicely: 'The project has passed an important internal milestone'
https://www.pcgamer.com/six-months-after-rebooting-prince-of-persia-the-sands-of-time-remake-ubisoft-says-its-coming-along-nicely-the-project-has-passed-an-important-internal-milestone/
Is the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake a new Skull and Bones? I'm starting to think it might be. After multiple delays, a complete reboot, and a warning to fans not to expect to hear more about the game in 2023, Ubisoft has dropped a brief message reassuring everyone that it's coming along nicely, and we'll be hearing more about it at some undefined point in the future.
>> Something positive coming from Ubisoft? Wow, that rarely happens nowadays.

An alt-history 'city builder grand strategy hybrid' set amidst two World Wars? Yes, you have my attention
https://www.pcgamer.com/an-alt-history-city-builder-grand-strategy-hybrid-set-amidst-two-world-wars-yes-you-have-my-attention/
Just the words "city builder" are enough to get my attention. Tack on "grand strategy"—as in you not only build a city but clash with a larger world using military and economic strategies—and I'm even more interested. Throw in an alt-history World War 1 and World War 2 setting, and yes. Yes, I am definitely sitting up and taking notice.

Sources claim the Knights of the Old Republic remake isn't dead, though what's really going on is anyone's guess
https://www.pcgamer.com/sources-claim-the-knights-of-the-old-republic-remake-isnt-dead-though-whats-really-going-on-is-anyones-guess/
It's been yet another rollercoaster week for Embracer's beleaguered remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which was "delayed indefinitely" last year after Texan studio Aspyr Media was relieved of development duties. On Friday, reports emerged that Embracer's boss had refused comment on the fate of the game, stating with exquisite irony "I notice that anything I say to this becomes a headline."
This triggered a fresh wave of speculation about the game, speculation that was further fuelled by claims from Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb that the remake "is not being worked on right now". Now, though, two developers at Saber Interactive, Asypr's parent company, have stated that the game is still in production.

17 years after its release, the best Star Wars strategy game gets converted to 64-bit
https://www.pcgamer.com/17-years-after-its-release-the-best-star-wars-strategy-game-gets-converted-to-64-bit/
November is a time for looking back at the past, whether that's through Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving, or in a more recent tradition, randomly patching up old-ass games. Last week, Valve were patching decades-old bugs in Half-Life as part of the game's 25'th anniversary celebrations. Now Star Wars: Empire at War is getting 64-bit support, 17 years on since its release.
Issued as a "maintenance patch update", the headline change in the patch notes reads "Both games have been converted from 32-bit to 64-bit applications". This has been done to "solve many out-of-memory bugs and crashes that players were experiencing."

Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya says 'It would be a disaster' if he ever collaborated with Hideo Kojima or Yoko Taro: 'It doesn't work like in Dragon Ball'
https://www.pcgamer.com/bayonetta-creator-hideki-kamiya-says-it-would-be-a-disaster-if-he-ever-collaborated-with-hideo-kojima-or-yoko-taro-it-doesnt-work-like-in-dragon-ball/
"Unemployed man" Hideki Kamiya continues to update his YouTube channel in the wake of his departure from Platinum, keeping the world at large updated on what he's been cooking, his opinions on onsen, and the last time he visited an aquarium.
All of which is a treat, but Kamiya has been chatting about a few videogame-related things too, including the likelihood of him ever teaming up with other legendary devs like Yoko Taro and Hideo Kojima. In short? Kamiya reckons a team-up like that would just cause friction.

A former GTA dev made an ill-fated blog about his experiences, and boy did Rockstar not like that: 'Maybe I'll try again in a decade or two'
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-former-gta-dev-made-an-ill-fated-blog-about-his-experiences-and-boy-did-rockstar-not-like-that-maybe-ill-try-again-in-a-decade-or-two/
I love hearing about all the little bits of developer weirdness that go into making games—cursed rain orbs, hidden centrifuges, and, most recently, the revelation that Grand Theft Auto 3's weird moon sniping easter egg was due to an unresolved dispute between artists. That last one's thanks to a dev blog by Rockstar North's former technical director, Obbe Vermeij.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Vermeij was a technical director at Rockstar North from 1995-2009, working on Grand Theft Auto 3 & 4, Vice City, and San Andreas. On November 11, Vermeij announced he'd be starting a developer blog about his "time at Rockstar North" on Twitter/X.
Vermeij's insights—both silly dev anecdotes and genuinely fascinating details, like the reveal that GTA 3 had a short-lived deathmatch mode—were all pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the lion's share of them are gone now, which Vermeij says are due to an email from his former colleagues.
"I got an email from [Rockstar North]," Vermeij writes in his final post. "I genuinely didn't think anyone would mind me talking about 20 year old games but I was wrong. Something about ruining the Rockstar mystique or something."
>> You know, I'm "starting" to think that it was Rockstar the ones that went after the mods of their games, not Take Two, and that their bosses are a bunch of d*ckheads.

Dave the Diver studio's zombie survival sim gets its pre-alpha playtest next week
https://www.pcgamer.com/dave-the-diver-studios-zombie-survival-sim-gets-its-pre-alpha-playtest-next-week/
Dave the Diver is one of PC Gamer's favourite games of 2023, no small feat in a year as crammed with great releases as this one has been. (...)
Naturally, we were hugely excited by what colourful, charming adventure developer Mintrocket might conjure up next. The good news is that its next game is coming much sooner than you'd expect, with a planned release in 2024. The…interesting news is that it’s a PvPvE Zombie Survival game called Nakwon: Last Paradise.

He was one of the original people that showed the benefits of these low latency technologies so he goes back to an old driver that had Anti-Lag+ enabled and tests against Reflex. While there was one game where Reflex did a lot better, most of the games he tested, Anti-Lag+ was right there with Reflex so it might have been down to game optimization. The issue of course is the way Radeon implemented Anti-Lag+ vs Nvidia Reflex below:

AMD’s Next-Gen RDNA 4 “Radeon RX 8000” GPUs GFX1200 & GFX1201 GPUs Spotted, Possibly Navi 44 & Navi 48

https://wccftech.com/amd-next-gen-rdna-4-radeon-rx-8000-gpus-gfx1200-gfx1201-gpus-spotted/

AMD Threadripper’s Record-Shattering Spree Continues As 7995WX Now Breaks Past 210K Barrier In Cinebench R23

https://wccftech.com/amd-threadripper-record-shattering-continues-7995wx-breaks-210k-barrier-cinebench/

The most disappointing CPU(s) award was very obvious. The number of de facto awards they gave to the 7800X3D was a bit more unexpected.