Tuesday news, part two:

Seasoned RPG devs from Obsidian and Bioware blame the temporary death of the isometric CRPG on 'vibes-based forecasting' from retailers
https://www.pcgamer.com/seasoned-rpg-devs-from-obsidian-and-bioware-blame-the-temporary-death-of-the-isometric-crpg-on-vibes-based-forecasting-from-retailers/
Game developer veterans from RPG companies like Obsidian and Bioware say that the temporary death of the CRPG in the early 2000s was down to retailer meddling, as outlined in a series of tweets made just before the holidays.

Nearly 10 years after it came out, Obsidian's isometric RPG Pillars of Eternity gets a surprise update
https://www.pcgamer.com/nearly-10-years-after-it-came-out-obsidians-isometric-rpg-pillars-of-eternity-gets-a-surprise-update/
Baldur's Gate 3 is the big, world-changing isometric party-based RPG that everyone's still talking about, but I've always felt that Pillars of Eternity is the game that really first started turning that engine over. The OG Infinity Engine vibes were strong, but it stood well on its own merits too: We called it "a deep, rich, and wonderfully written RPG that lives up to the towering legacy of the games that inspired it" in our 92% review.
That was in 2015, mind, nearly a full decade ago, which is why it comes as a little bit of a surprise that developer Obsidian has released a brand new patch for the game that's now available in the Pillars of Eternity beta branch on Steam.
>> It's a bug fixing update.

Age of Empires developer confirms the game is mostly written in low-level Assembly code because 'we could scroll the screen and fill it with sprites as fast or faster' than competitors like Starcraft 'even though we had twice as many pixels'
https://www.pcgamer.com/age-of-empires-developer-confirms-the-game-is-mostly-written-in-low-level-assembly-code-because-we-could-scroll-the-screen-and-fill-it-with-sprites-as-fast-or-faster-than-competitors-like-starcraft-even-though-we-had-twice-as-many-pixels/
Some of the greatest stories about games are simply about how developers made the thing work. Ask any developer for their favourite workarounds and you'll get a full evening's worth of entertainment about how a giant tram is actually an NPC with a hat on, or how rabbits are actually what makes Azeroth work, and so on.
This isn't quite on those lines, but a redditor recently noted that Chris Sawyer wrote Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 in Assembly language, and apparently Age of Empires was the same: "AoE is written in Assembly: is this actually TRUE?!" (...)
The question about whether Age of Empires was coded in Assembly language hit gold in the replies thanks to Matt Pritchard, one of the founding members of Ensemble Studios, who's been the coding lead on the series from the very start.

Dead by Daylight's flashlight teaser has a lot of fans convinced that Alan Wake is on the way
https://www.pcgamer.com/dead-by-daylights-flashlight-teaser-has-a-lot-of-fans-convinced-that-alan-wake-is-on-the-way/
A couple months after bringing diminutive psycho-stabber Chucky to the multiplayer survival horror game Dead by Daylight, Behaviour Interactive is teasing something new—and a lot of fans are convinced that an Alan Wake crossover is on the way.

Former Stardew Valley contributor is making a new life sim set in a city, and it's already packed with little features new to the genre
https://www.pcgamer.com/former-stardew-valley-contributor-is-making-a-new-life-sim-set-in-a-city-and-its-already-packed-with-little-features-new-to-the-genre/
(...)
As spotted by RockPaperShotgun, freelance game developer Arthur Lee (who's credited as part of the Stardew Valley team during development of the 1.5 update) is working on an untitled new life sim and sharing weekly details about development on X. Though it remains untitled at the moment, he's expecting it to involve the name "Apollo City" after the game's main setting.

Baldur's Gate 3 designer totally gets it if you were overwhelmed by the shift to the game's 3rd act, and don't worry: it'll be 'less drastic' in future games
https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-designer-totally-gets-it-if-you-were-overwhelmed-by-the-shift-to-the-games-3rd-act-and-dont-worry-itll-be-less-drastic-in-future-games/
Can I make a confession? It took me about a month to get through the third act of Baldur's Gate 3. Not because it was particularly challenging or—relative to the acts that preceded it—especially long, but because the second I arrived in Rivington I felt compelled to put the game down and go do something else for a while.
I guess I wasn't alone in that feeling. In a recent chat with Gamereactor, Larian senior RPG designer Anna Guxens was asked about BG3's third act, and specifically how she felt it could be improved either now or in future games from the studio.

ASUS Unveils ROG SWIFT OLED 2024 Gaming Monitor Lineup: QD-OLED, 32-Inch 4K Flat, Dual-Mode Tech & More

https://wccftech.com/asus-rog-swift-oled-2024-gaming-monitor-lineup-qd-oled-32-inch-4k-flat-dual-mode/

No model seems to have everything but the Samsung QD-OLED panel variant has the least amount of compromises

ASUS Intros ROG Maximus Z790 HERO & ROG STRIX RTX 4090 BTF Edition PC Components With Hidden Power Connectors

https://wccftech.com/asus-rog-maximus-z790-hero-rog-strix-rtx-4090-btf-pc-components-hidden-power-connectors/

Good luck reselling

AMD Radeon 700M “RDNA 3” iGPUs Recieve Fluid Motion Frames Support, Brings FPS-Boost To Laptop & Handheld Gamers

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-700m-rdna-3-igpus-fluid-motion-frames-support-fps-boost-laptop-handheld-gamers/

Dude, what is up with DSO's community? I scrolled down to the comments on that Suicide Squad article and the top comment (no down votes) is some straight up Nazi shit.

Social Media in a nutshell these days

A couple of news that may interest some of you:

Intel to roll out 14th Gen's game optimization software to older 12/13th Gen hybrid CPUs after all
https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-to-roll-out-14th-gens-game-optimization-software-to-older-1213th-gen-hybrid-cpus-after-all/
Intel's performance-enhancing Application Optimizer software is set to be supported on some 12th and 13th Gen processors, in a complete reverse of the company's previous position on the matter.

Application Optimizer (APO) is a piece of software built into Intel's drivers that helps optimise processor performance in supported games. It has the potential to be quite handy, too. Intel cites up to double digit performance gains with APO enabled in Metro Exodus, for example.

Initially only supported on the 14900K/KF and 14700K/KF, there had been calls on Intel to open up the APO software—which is built into Intel's Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT) driver—to older 12th and 13th Gen chips that utilise the same sort of hybrid architecture as the 14th Gen.

Intel had resoundingly shot down this idea to Hardware Unboxed, after the YouTube channel's own testing of the feature, when it quoted Intel as saying it "has no plans to support prior generation products with Application Optimization."

Well, that's all changed at CES 2024. Just briefly mentioned during a presentation, Intel said it plans to support some prior generation products with Application Optimization—at least some 12th and 13th Gen K-series processors.

>>The launch window is over and now they can roll it to the other processors without hurting the salse of those 14th gen CPUs.

Nvidia's G-Sync Pulsar hopes to banish a form of motion blur that's plague PC gaming for years
https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-g-sync-pulsar-hopes-to-banish-a-form-of-motion-blur-thats-plague-pc-gaming-for-years/
One way to prevent motion blur from occurring on a gaming monitor is to speed up how fast a pixel is able to transition to another value. Us PC gamers know that—we're always chasing lower response times and higher refresh rates. However, Nvidia tells me there's another important factor in causing motion blur in monitors: our eyes. They hold onto information as it flashes in front of our eyes, causing blur, and the only way to get rid of that is to strobe a monitor's backlight.

Remember Ultra Low Motion Blur? That's essentially what we're talking about here. Though Nvidia is bringing together a couple things to make for an all-round blur banishing tech with G-Sync Pulsar. Nvidia says it is designed specifically to provide a more advanced strobing technology that works in tandem with variable refresh rate technologies.

I've just watched G-Sync Pulsar over at its CES 2024 booth. The Nvidia employees demonstrating it for me had Counter-Strike 2 running on a high-refresh rate gaming monitor. First up, Pulsar disabled. They noted to pay particular attention to the display name above the player character, which was pretty much indecipherable as they moved the character back and forth across the screen.

With a flick of a switch, Pulsar came on and the name tag was clearly pretty visible. Similarly, more details on the player character were clear as they ran back and forth.

DDR5-7600 might have been a bit too high. I checked the prices for 32GB kits and a DDR5-4800 kit cost about 100€, while a DDR5-6400 was already available for 120€. Meanwhile, DDR5-7200 could be bought for around 150€, significantly expanding the bandwidth compared to DDR5-4800 for just roughly 50€ more; DDR5-7600 however is not really worthwhile because for the little increase over DDR5-7200 costs an extra 30€.

DDR5-6400 would certainly be the most cost-effective choice, but going to 7200 isn't prohibitively expensive - especially compare to GPU prices these days and even more acute entry-level GPUs. You have to pay at least 200€ for a GPU that isn't total crap. As in, an Intel A580 or AMD RX 6600 starts at those prices, with Intel A750 and AMD RX 6650XT coming just before 250€ (NVidia only has the 3050 in that price range, which is closer to the 6500 in performance)

This is the primary result of DSO holding a democratic vote process over the past 5 years, in which they continuously allowed for their community to "vote" for changes made to the site's rules (that being next to none, they basically voted to have next to no rules)...

I warned John 4 years ago that this would only get worse, but did he listen to me?, no, instead he's still posting "articles" (they read more like blog rants now), while ignoring the comment sections devolving into pure shit. That's why I stopped using DSO (that and John never really improved his findings and generally still goes for click baity shit at times).

You know there will be no 4070 Ti FE right? AIB prices will do what they did last time, rip you off. The 4080 super will keep the same prices and the FE will be OOS like all the time with NVIDIA concentrating on AI.

There's a reason I stopped using twatter.

Freedom of speech absolutism working its magic is my guess, although that's literally just a guess. Also, a significant subset of gamers seems to be quite toxic in general, so no wonder it's what it is.