^That sounds promising, and the names behind it will guarantee its successful funding.

Time for the news!

1-Drivers

AMD Radeon Software 16.4.2 Is Now Available

AMD has released a new driver for its graphics cards. According to its release notes, this new driver features updated Crossfire profiles for Elite Dangerous and Need For Speed, and packs a number of bug fixes.

>>They needed a new driver with the Radeon Pro Duo launching, right? Download them from here.

2-Gaming News

DARK SOULS III PATCH 1.04 DETAILED, WILL FEATURE PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/dark-souls-iii-patch-1-04-detailed-will-feature-performance-improvements/

FromSoftware has detailed the next update for Dark Souls III. According to the team, this patch will address a number of bugs that have been reported. While there is no ETA yet, you can view all the upcoming changes below.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE GAME – FIRST GAMEPLAY TRAILERS RELEASED

http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/friday-13th-game-first-gameplay-trailers-released/

Gun Media has released the first gameplay trailers for its Unreal Engine 4-powered horror game, Friday the 13th: The Game. Friday the 13th: The Game will be a third-person, asymmetrical multiplayer title where one player controls Jason Voorhees while the remaining seven control camp counselors trying to survive the night. The game is currently planned for an Autumn release, and these videos showcase what gamers can expect from it.

>>There¡s not one but two videos! Follow the new link to see them.

NEW HITMAN SCREENSHOTS FOR EPISODE 2: SAPIENZA RELEASED

http://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-hitman-screenshots-for-episode-2-sapienza-released/

quare Enix has released a new set of screenshots from the upcoming second episode of HITMAN. HITMAN Episode 2: Sapienza releases today on the PC, and enlists Agent 47 to target Silvio Caruso, a brilliant but troubled bioengineer employed by the Ether Biotech Corporation who is reportedly working on a DNA-Specific virus able to infect anyone anywhere in the world.

EVERSPACE – SPACE SHOOTER POWERED BY UNREAL ENGINE 4 & PHYSX – ENTERS CLOSED ALPHA ON APRIL 29TH

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/everspace-space-shooter-powered-unreal-engine-4-physx-enters-closed-alpha-april-29th/

ROCKFISH Games today announced the closed alpha for their roguelike space shooter EVERSPACE, which will begin on April 29th. EVERSPACE is the most funded German game cumulated, and as a special highlight for VR fans, the closed alpha is also offering basic Oculus Rift support. The closed beta, planned for the end of July, will also include support for HTC Vive as well as Mac and Linux.

>>Watch the new gameplay trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCxZyRpae6w

NEW SHADOW WARRIOR 2 GAMEPLAY SURFACES – ENJOY 12 MINUTES OF PURE GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE

http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-shadow-warrior-2-gameplay-surfaces-enjoy-12-minutes-pure-gameplay-footage/

Devolver Digital has released a new trailer for Shadow Warrior 2, showcasing twelve minutes of pure gameplay action. In Shadow Warrior 2, players will battle alongside allies online in four-player co-op or go it alone in spectacular procedurally-generated landscapes to complete daring missions and collect powerful new weapons, armor, and arcane relics of legend. Shadow Warrior 2 promises to be as crazy as its predecessor, and will be released later this year on the PC.

>>Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIikukPw9f4

SYNDICATE WARS PORT IS NOW AVAILABLE – PLAY THIS CLASSIC 1996 DOS GAME ON MODERN-DAY OSES (WINDOWS, OS X & GNU)

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/syndicate-wars-port-project-ports-1996-dos-version-modern-day-oses-windows-os-x-gnu/

Syndicate Wars is considered a classic game. Unfortunately though, the game was not compatible with modern-day operating systems until it got re-released on GOG. Still, this did not stop a team of programmers who have released Syndicate Wars Port; a port of the 1996 DOS game Syndicate Wars to modern operating systems.

HOMEFRONT: THE REVOLUTION OPENING CINEMATIC TRAILER RELEASED

http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/homefront-revolution-opening-cinematic-trailer-released/

Deep Silver has released a new trailer for Homefront: The Revolution, featuring the game’s opening cinematic sequence. The game tells the story of how North Korea rose from the ashes of the Korean War to become a dominant world power, and ultimately occupy a fallen America. Homefront: The Revolution will be released on the PC on May 17th.

>>Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkAYv-ay4Bc

The second part of the news:

GOG ADDS VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE—BLOODLINES AND KICKS OFF A NEW SALE

http://www.pcgamer.com/gog-adds-vampire-the-masqueradebloodlines-and-kicks-off-a-new-sale/

A couple of interesting bits of news have emerged from GOG today, the first being the kickoff of the Bundleopolis sale, which for the next week will offer a variety of game bundles at up to 80 percent off.

(...)

Sales are great, but even more exciting is the GOG debut of Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines, one of the deepest and most unforgettable RPGs ever made.

BREACHED GAMEPLAY TRAILER TEASES SOME SORT OF STRANGE SCI-FI MYSTERY

http://www.pcgamer.com/breached-gameplay-trailer-teases-some-sort-of-strange-sci-fi-mystery/

The premise for Breached, which describes itself as a "story-driven sci-fi adventure", is an incredibly familiar one. Yo play Corus Valott, who's awoken from a long period of suspended animation to discover that the world lies in ruins. You don't know why—but you're going to find out. On its own, it's not the sort of bold new idea that's likely to set anyone's imagination aflame, but the gameplay trailer is something entirely more promising.

>>Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_HAJUYqyPg

BATTLEBORN'S "PREQUEL MOTION COMIC" TRILOGY SETS UP THE STORY BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN

http://www.pcgamer.com/battleborns-prequel-motion-comic-trilogy-sets-up-the-story-behind-the-campaign/

The FPS/MOBA hybrid Battleborn is coming, and 2K Games would like you to know precisely why. Or, as the publisher said in today's round-up of the three prequel motion comics, “How the hell did we get into this mess in the first place?”

DOTA 2 GAMEPLAY UPDATE CHANGES RANKED ALL PICK, ADDS NEW SCAN FUNCTION

http://www.pcgamer.com/dota-2-gameplay-update-changes-ranked-all-pick-adds-new-scan-function/

Dota 2 is about to undergo significant changes in the form of the 6.87 gameplay update revealed by Valve earlier today. Foremost among them is a change to Ranked All Pick that incorporates the addition of a 15-second “voting phase” which will take place ahead of the picking phase. Each player will vote for a different hero, half of whom will be selected at random and banned.

ASSASSIN'S CREED CREATOR SETTLES HIS LAWSUIT AGAINST UBISOFT

http://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-creator-settles-his-lawsuit-against-ubisoft/

Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets' history with Ubisoft hasn't been entirely smooth and happy. In 2010, he left Ubisoft Montreal “to take a creative break from the industry,” as Ubi told GameInformer, and when he returned it was not to the warm embrace of his former employer but rather to THQ. When THQ collapsed, Ubisoft bought out its Montreal studio—Désilets included—and acquired control of 1666 Amsterdam, the project he was working on the time. Then it fired him.

AUTO AGE: STANDOFF IS A VEHICULAR, POST-APOCALYPTIC MOBA

http://www.pcgamer.com/auto-age-standoff-is-a-vehicular-post-apocalyptic-moba/

It doesn't seem sensible to launch a new MOBA in 2016, especially with games like Magicka: Wizard Wars shutting down prematurely, and the firm stranglehold League of Legends, Dota 2 and Heroes of the Storm have on the genre. Still, Auto Age: Standoff has a very interesting hook: it's a MOBA with vehicular combat.

>>Watch a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e8n3od-5Vs

DOOM SNAPMAP TOOLSET SHOWCASED IN LENGTHY DEV VIDEO

http://www.pcgamer.com/doom-snapmap-toolset-showcased-in-lengthy-dev-video/

Doom won't support modding, but it will come with SnapMap – a bundled toolkit which allows players to build their own levels. The video above is a lengthy overview of the kind of things you'll be able to achieve with the tools (it kicks off at around the 13 minute mark).

>>Follow the link to watch the Twitch video.

BLIZZARD SPEAKS OUT ABOUT NOSTALRIUS SHUTDOWN

http://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-speaks-out-about-nostalrius-shutdown/

Blizzard has broken radio silence on the closure of custom vanilla WoW server Nostalrius. The server hosts were issued a cease and desist that took the server down on April 10. Despite a 200,000 strong petition meant to be personally delivered by former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, Blizzard's decision is apparently final.

WATCH MEDIEVAL MULTIPLAYER VR COMBAT IN VALIANT'S EARLY ACCESS TRAILER

http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-medieval-multiplayer-vr-combat-in-valiants-early-access-trailer/

Valiant seems to be VR's premiere multiplayer medieval combat game, which is an exciting pitch whatever form it comes in. Valiant has opted to focus on mounted play, with the trailer above showcasing 60 seconds of jousting, archery and javelin throwing accompanied by a sweeping orchestral soundtrack. Here's hoping that a choir shouting 'WAHHH' every time a man gets stabbed in the face makes it into the full game.

>>Watch this rather weird video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAuXrLLux8

About the drivers, after two years with 2014 drivers, I finally updated to 16.4.1 a few weeks ago, luckily I don't need the latest updates, otherwise I'd be a little pissed off.

About Syndicate Wars, if my backlog weren't huge and my spare time scarce, I'd be tempted to play it again.

I know that the latest drivers are from earlier this month, but why would you be pissed off? With drivers it's always preferable to have many updates to support the games that launch.

In any case, this update seems to focus on solving Xfire problems, so it's not very important for single card owners.

I'm not pissed off they update often, I'm happy they fix bugs quickly, but AMD driver updates are boring, they require, or at least it's strongly advised, to uninstall the old ones before, so, as I just updated, I'd be pissed off to have to repeat the process again less then a month after. But luckily when drivers are mature, it's likely that each user be affected just by a limited number of the total remaining bugs, or even none, so not every update is necessary for each user. Anyhow, it's not even AMD fault, it's MS that's jurassic, Windows 7 still requires restarts not only for most updates, but also to complete the uninstall of the previous drivers, if a simple update isn't possible or advisable, when on Linux and other unix and unix-like OS', since many years before Win 7, only few low-level updates require a restart, and when it's needed, it's just one even if a complete uninstall of the old SW is needed, and in theory graphics drivers updates just require a restart of the graphics environment, not of the PC, and they can be scheduled with the update manager together with all the other updates, just one restart, sometimes no restart at all, and you update everything.

^I admit that the restarts are a pain in the arse.

Speaking of AMD, The Radeon Pro Duo has finally launched... and there are no reviews of it. It turns out that AMD didn't send review samples to anyone :-/.

But we can always count on China! Expreview has reviewed it, and the charts are understandable for all. Below are some of the charts, but the summary is that the Radeon Pro Duo is about 50% faster than Fury X at 1080p and 60% faster at 4K. Meanwhile, it's only 30% faster than a 980Ti at 1080p but 60% faster at 4K.

Radeon Pro Duo vs Fury X at 1080p and 4K

Radeon Pro Duo vs 980Ti at 1080p and 4K

Power consumption and temperatures

And on another note, there's a new rumor about AMD and Polaris:

AMD Polaris 10 GPU Reportedly Offers Near 980 Ti Performance For 300 USD

http://www.game-debate.com/news/?news=20006&graphics=Radeon%20R9%20490X%208GB&title=AMD%20Polaris%2010%20GPU%20Reportedly%20Offers%20Near%20980%20Ti%20Performance%20For%20300%20USD

AMD reportedly hosted an event designed to showcase its upcoming Polaris GPUs and the Radeon Pro Duo to journalists behind closed doors in Taiwan recently, ahead of an expected official unveiling in May. The big noise coming out of the event is that the switch to the 14nm FinFET fabrication process means the Polaris 10 GPU performs extremely close to the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, but for a drastically cheaper price point.

As we’ve detailed before, the process shrink means improvements to efficiency and transistor density, resulting in a bump in performance. That bump looks to be a hefty one as well, if the Polaris 10 is to match the GTX 980 Ti.

The Polaris 10 GPU is the successor to the 300-series, which AMD views as its mainstream range. This means Polaris 10 is not the next Fury and Fury X, but rather a 300 series successor, which is up to and including the R9 390X. That equates to the eventual Polaris 10 powered Radeon R9 490X being capable of GTX 980 Ti performance for a price tag in the region of $300-400.

The Polaris 10 GPU itself has a maximum TDP of 175W, but AMD claims it will generally consume far less than that. Early benchmarks have the Polaris 10 scoring in the region of 4000 points in 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra, which puts it firmly in the ballpark of the Fury X and the 980 Ti. If AMD can hit the rumoured $300 price point with such a graphics card then it could have an absolute monster on its hands.

Would you like be ok with a card with the 980Ti performance but at $350?

^^ Good news indeed, also for the next lower-end GPUs, that at last, with architecture evolution, should follow the new high-end path with a performance increase. At the point I've reached in my huge backlog, I'm still fine with my R7 250, but I'll eventually reach its limits, and I guess that now, with AMD finally delivering what it postponed for so long, by the end of next year even mid-priced, low-consumption CPUs, APUs and GPUs will offer all I need to play 8th gen games at 1080p, high settings and 40fps or more and 1080p@60fps or more with mid or mid-high settings for faster paced games. I expected this to happen sooner, but better late than never.

^I would refrain my enthusiasm. After what AMD said and the rumors we have, it seems clear that AMD is focusing on mainstream products, not high end, but will they be able to deliver Fury X/980Ti performance at less than 175W for $300-350?

Or to put it another way, AMD has always talked about 2 or 2.5x performance/watts improvement from the current gen of cards to Polaris, and the 390X is a 275W card, so half of that is 138W. Will those extra 35W and the newer architecture make up for the roughly 35% performance advantage the 980Ti has over the 390X?

Time for the news! Oh, I won't be able to post videos today.

1-Mods

• New GTA5Redux Screenshots Show Graphical Improvements Over Vanilla Version http://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-gta5redux-screenshots-show-graphical-improvements-vanilla-version/

2-Software

Steam users can now rent over 100 Lionsgate feature films

http://hexus.net/business/news/internet/92402-steam-users-can-now-rent-100-lionsgate-feature-films/

Valve’s Steam digital distribution system has dipped a large toe into the online film rental business. Lionsgate will license over 100 of its well-known films to be rented out via Steam. That’s not a huge library but the titles include blockbusters like The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Saw series of films.

>>I wonder if that's only for the US or if it will also work overseas.

3-Gaming News

ASHES OF THE SINGULARITY UPDATE 1.1 IS NOW AVAILABLE

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ashes-singularity-update-1-1-now-available/

Stardock released version 1.1 of Ashes of the Singularity today . This update includes the addition of campaign challenge levels, new “intermediate” and “novice” difficulty levels for the AI in Skirmish mode, a new unit, and a brand new global ability.

JOHN ROMERO RELEASES YET ANOTHER NEW MAP FOR THE ORIGINAL DOOM

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/john-romero-releases-yet-another-new-map-original-doom/

With the launch of BLACKROOM’s Kickstarter campaign, one would thought that John Romero would be quite busy. Well, it appears that John has a lot of free time at his disposal as he has released another new map for the original Doom game.

>>Follow the news link to see a video of the new map.

DOOM SINGLE-PLAYER CAMPAIGN “CANCELLED/UNFINISHED” TRAILER LEAKED ONLINE

http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/doom-single-player-campaign-trailer-leaked-online/

Bethesda will release a new trailer for DOOM’s single-player campaign this Wednesday, however a leaked trailer appeared earlier today, showcasing the game’s SP mode. This trailer seems to be from an older build and is said to be a cancelled/unfinished trailer. Still, it will give you an idea of what you can expect from the new SP trailer for DOOM. Oh, and it looks bloody amazing.

>>Check it out and see it for yourself.

FALLOUT 4 BETA MOD TOOLS NOW AVAILABLE ON THE PC

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/fallout-4-beta-mod-tools-now-available-pc/

PC gamers, rejoice. Bethesda has released the beta build of the Creation Kit for Fallout 4 on the PC. This means that everyone can go ahead and download the beta mod tools right now. In order to celebrate this release, Bethesda has also released a new trailer – dedicated to the Fallout 4 mod tools – that can be viewed below.

>>Check out mornelithe's thread about this: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=216040

RUMOUR – NEXT CALL OF DUTY TO BE CALLED INFINITE WARFARE, WILL INCLUDE A REMASTER OF MODERN WARFARE

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/rumour-next-call-duty-called-infinite-warfare-will-include-remaster-modern-warfare/

According to a leaked poster – shared by Reddit’s ‘InfiniteWarfareLeaks‘ – the next Call of Duty game will be called Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, will be released on November 4th, and its Legacy Edition will come with a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

>>Check out poklane's thread: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=216038

NEED FOR SPEED SPEEDLISTS UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE, RELEASE NOTES REVEALED

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/need-speed-speedlists-update-now-available-release-notes-revealed/

Electronic Arts and Ghost Games have released a new update for Need For Speed. According to the release notes, this patch adds SpeedLists and a Prestige Mode, packs various changes to the way Daily Challenges award decals, and brings some new activities.

MIGHT & MAGIC HEROES VII: TRIAL BY FIRE STANDALONE ADD-ON ANNOUNCED, COMING THIS JUNE

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/might-magic-heroes-vii-trial-fire-standalone-add-announced-coming-june/

Ubisoft has announced “Trial by Fire”, an add-on for the turn-based strategy game Might & Magic Heroes VII. This update will be made available as both a standard and a standalone expansion, and will hit the PC on June 2nd.

HITMAN – NEW UPDATE FIXES LOCKED GRAPHICS SETTINGS, INCLUDES PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/hitman-new-update-fixes-locked-graphics-settings-includes-performance-improvements/

Square Enix and IO Interactive have released a new patch for the PC version of HITMAN. According to the release notes, this update fixes the “locked graphics settings” bug that was introduced via the previous update, and packs various performance improvements. This patch will be auto-downloaded from Steam, and you can read its complete changelog below.