Isn't that what they are doing now?

The Wednesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

State of Decay 2 celebrates 10 million lifetime players with remastered map
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/state-of-decay-2-homecoming/
We weren't particularly hot on State of Decay 2 when it released, but that hasn't stopped 10 million players from shooting up some zombies and building up their randomly generated zombie-shooting parties. Undead Labs celebrated the milestone by announcing a major new DLC at Gamescom.
Check out the trailer above for a look at State of Decay 2: Homecoming.

GOG has a new contest, two new releases and two new demos to try:

• Let's start with the contest: to win one of 10 game bundles including EVERSPACE, Loop Hero, Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy 1+2+3 and more, you have to tell them " how your love for gaming began". Do it here: https://www.gog.com/news/bjoin_the_festivities_with_our_gog_games_festival_contestb
• Serin Fate lands on the store with a 20% discount until September 1: https://www.gog.com/game/serin_fate
• Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos launches with a 30% discount until the 1st of September: https://www.gog.com/game/ultimate_adom_caverns_of_chaos
• And here you'll find two new demos from Deck13: https://www.gog.com/news/put_your_skills_to_the_test_with_these_demos_from_deck13

Steam has two new daily deals:

• The first one is Garden Paws. 25% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/840010/Garden_Paws/
• The second one is GOD EATER 3, 80% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/899440/GOD_EATER_3/

Fanatical has a new Star Deal: Iron Harvest is 78% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/iron-harvest

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

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GAMING NEWS

Here are 90 minutes of gameplay footage from Age of Empires 4
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-90-minutes-of-gameplay-footage-from-age-of-empires-4/
Age of Empires 4’s closed beta took place earlier this month and below you can find a video showing more than 90 minutes of gameplay footage from it.
>> Microfot has taken down the video, but they've replaced it with another one of 35 minutes.

Forza Horizon 5 gamescom 2021 gameplay trailer showcases numerous cars & environments
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/forza-horizon-5-gamescom-2021-gameplay-trailer-showcases-numerous-cars-environments/
Microsoft has released a new gamescom 2021 gameplay trailer for Forza Horizon 5, showcasing numerous cars and environments. This trailer features the Mercedes-AMG ONE and the 2021 Ford Bronco Badlands, as well as landscapes such as the active, snow-capped Gran Caldera volcano, a dust storm in the Mexican farmland, and dense jungle tree canopy.

Bright Memory Infinite gets a new cool Ray Tracing PC Trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/bright-memory-infinite-gets-a-new-cool-ray-tracing-pc-trailer/
NVIDIA has released a brand new PC trailer for Bright Memory Infinite that highlights the game’s Ray Tracing effects. Moreover, it packs a few new gameplay sequences from this upcoming first-person shooter.

Crysis Remastered won’t have the Denuvo anti-tamper tech on Steam
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/crysis-remastered-wont-have-the-denuvo-anti-tamper-tech-on-steam/
Crytek has announced that Crysis Remastered will be coming to Steam this Fall. Moreover, the team has confirmed that the Steam version will not have the Denuvo anti-tamper tech.

The news, part two:

Apex Legends developer admits it 'missed the mark' with Seer, slams him with nerfs
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/apex-legends-developer-admits-it-missed-the-mark-with-seer-slams-him-with-nerfs/
We're a few week into Apex Legends' latest season, Emergence, and it's probably safe to say that new boy Seer was properly busted on arrival. Respawn, to its credit, appears to agree, with a hefty new patch arriving last night to knock the fashionable lad down a few pegs.

Black Geyser is a CRPG where greed is bad, actually
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/black-geyser-is-a-crpg-where-greed-is-bad-actually/
Black Geyser may be inspired by classic isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but you usually finish games like that with more gold than you know what to do with, having looted every kobold, barrel, and stranger's house you've encountered (and maybe picked some pockets too). In this game, greed makes the world a worse place.

Gjallarhorn is coming to Destiny 2 as part of Bungie's 30th anniversary celebration
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/gjallarhorn-is-coming-to-destiny-2-as-part-of-bungies-30th-anniversary-celebration/
Amidst the excitement of today's big Destiny 2: The Witch Queen expansion reveal, Bungie also announced that it will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a free in-game event and an anniversary pack that includes a new dungeon, ornament sets, an exotic ship and sparrow, and the grand centerpiece, the famed Destiny 1 weapon Gjallarhorn.

Competitive multiplayer is coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/microsoft-flight-simulator-racing-multiplayer/
During today's Xbox showcase, Microsoft Flight Simulator announced its first competitive mode: multiplayer racing. The game is partnering with the renowned Reno Air Racing Association to introduce the STIHL National Championship Air Races, which calls itself "the world's fastest motorsport." It's true: The planes reach speeds in excess of 500 mph, which cars, for instance, are not known for doing.

Ketchup and mustard-colored Borderlands ships will splash onto Sea of Thieves this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/ketchup-and-mustard-colored-borderlands-ships-will-splash-onto-sea-of-thieves-this-week/
If you've always thought swashbuckling sandbox Sea of Thieves could use more sci-fi crossovers, this is your week. A Borderlands inspired ship set is coming to Sea of Thieves today in an event called Making Mayhem and, as with all things Borderlands, it's not exactly subtle.

Stray Blade is a new Souls-like with 'ironman' combat and a witty wolf
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/Stray-Blade-is-a-new-Souls-like-with-ironman-combat-and-a-witty-wolf/
505 Games unveiled a new action-adventure called Stray Blade during today's Xbox stream at Gamescom, a Souls-like tale of a "rogue adventurer" in the Lost Valley of Acrea and his "witty wolf"—although he looks more like a gremlin to me—companion named Boji.

The 7 most important things coming with Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/destiny-2s-the-witch-queen-expansion-brings-weapon-crafting-new-destination-and-glaives/
Considering she's the Hive goddess of deception, Savathûn doesn't seem all that great at keeping secrets. (Or does she? Etc and so on.) Today, Bungie gave Destiny 2 players their first real look at The Witch Queen expansion in the form of an hour-long reveal stream, which is embedded above. Or at least, the first look assuming you'd managed to avoid the juicy Pastebin, Notepad and Australian PlayStation store leaks, which at this point appear to have been confirmed as almost entirely accurate. Either way, the stream contained a ton of info about what's coming to Destiny 2 in The Witch Queen on 2 February 2022.
>> Despite what the article says, there's no embedded stream in the article.

Bungie co-founder Jason Jones looks back at the 'buckets of blood' that went into Halo and talks future of computing
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/bungie-co-founder-jason-jones-looks-back-at-the-buckets-of-blood-that-went-into-halo-and-talks-future-of-computing/
If Bungie co-founder and longtime creative lead Jason Jones is famous for anything, it's for trying not to be famous. Since finishing Halo 2 in 2004, he's mostly avoided the limelight, only rarely appearing in interviews or videos to hype up a rare new Bungie game like Destiny. As part of Bungie's livestream event for Destiny 2's new Season of the Lost, Jones sat down for a short interview with Destiny 2 director Luke Smith to talk about his career as well as where he thinks computers are headed over the next 20 years. It turns out Jones has strong feelings about the impending popularity of augmented reality.

Activision says it is 'evolving' Warzone's anti-cheat after player claims he was hardware banned
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/activision-says-it-is-evolving-warzones-anti-cheat-after-player-claims-he-was-hardware-banned/
Activision said during the official unveiling of Call of Duty: Vanguard last week that a new anti-cheat system for Warzone is in the works and expected to go be rolled out later this year when the new Warzone map goes live (...) The wheels may be turning on that process faster than we expected: A Tiktok user named rushman360 said in a video posted earlier this month that he's been hardware banned, meaning that Activision has locked his machine out of the game, no matter which account he uses. He can no longer access any of his accounts, or even make new ones.

Into the Pit is a spellcasting FPS roguelite with lashings of Heretic and Bloodborne
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/into-the-pit-is-a-spellcasting-fps-roguelite-with-lashings-of-heretic-and-bloodborne/
Hardly a week goes by without a new retro-styled FPS emerging, and Into the Pit isn't even the first (hello, Forgive Me Father), but it's probably the only one where your character throws up devil horns on beating a baddie. Revealed at Xbox's Gamescom presentation today, Into the Pit is a spellcasting FPS roguelite set in a village harried by a "demonic pit".

Final Fantasy 4 pixel remaster gets a release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/final-fantasy-4-pixel-remaster-gets-a-release-date/
The first three instalments in the Final Fantasy pixel remasters released last month, and aside from some crappy fonts and other minor issues, it's good to have some proper ports of these aging console classics. The first six Final Fantasy games are set to receive the treatment over time, and Final Fantasy 4 is next cab off the rank: it releases on September 8.

Wasteland 3's final expansion is Cult of the Holy Detonation
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/wasteland-3s-final-expansion-is-cult-of-the-holy-detonation/
Post-apocalyptic wingnuts who worship a nuke? I've heard that before. What's different about the Cult of the Holy Detonation is that they worship a nuclear explosion held in stasis, a miraculous boom that never actually goes boom. Their god could be a potential power source or weapon, and obviously a bunch of mutant yahoos can't be trusted with it.

Halo Infinite's release date may have just leaked
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/halo-infinites-release-date-may-have-just-leaked/
Halo Infinite's release date may have just been leaked. If it's true, we'll still be seeing it in 2021, though a little later than some were hoping.
Despite a surprising lack of news about a release date during the Xbox Gamescom presentation this week, it looks like the Microsoft Store may have potentially dropped the launch date for Halo Infinite earlier than intended. Microsoft leaker Aggioramenti Lumia shared a screenshot of the game's store page, which shows a release date of December 8 this year. This was then further corroborated by The Verge editor Tom Warren and Twitter user HaloDotAPI.

Destiny 2's new anti-cheat comes with a performance cost, Bungie warns
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/destiny-2s-new-anti-cheat-comes-with-a-performance-cost-bungie-warns/
Last night, Destiny 2 upgraded its security efforts by integrating venerable anti-cheat software BattlEye to the game. But that extra safety may come with a performance cost, as Bungie warns of frame dips and increased load times.

Intel Core i7-12700 non-K Alder Lake CPU is almost as fast as Ryzen 7 5800X in leaked Geekbench score

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-i7-12700-non-k-alder-lake-cpu-is-almost-as-fast-as-ryzen-7-5800x-in-leaked-geekbench-score

I'd ignore the rocket lake results because they are skewed by having AVX512 while AMD and ironically, Alder Lake S doesn't. Overall, it's good performance for a non-K sku. If the K skus are 15-20% ahead of Ryzen 5000 and not priced terribly, I think it will be a good CPU. But with Intel, pricing can always be funky.

EVGA X570S Dark motherboard pictured

https://videocardz.com/newz/evga-x570s-dark-motherboard-pictured

Speedrun Gigabyte Power Supply Explosion: Biggest Failure Yet (GP-P750GM)

They were able to kill it in 13 minutes. Skip to 16:50 if you want to see. No PSUs regardless of load should be doing this as it's protections should come on and project it. Shameful Gigabyte.

I certainly won't have any games to play on December 8th so here's hoping it will be good.

Looking quite promising for Alderlake. If the benchmark leaks from a couple months are indicative of performance (of their higher end skus) they're in for a winner for this year. Particularly, the single core scores which is will put this on top for gaming and overall.  If they priced similarly to their current lineup, this would put Intel back in the game. It'll be interesting to see how AMD will respond with their refresh lineup with V-cache.

Also kinda shocking (pun intended) that Gigabyte won't admit that their product is faulty and instead try to trying to pin it on reviewers testing methodology. I mean peoples feedback and returns on huge retailers should have been a big enough of a red flag.

Count me out of Gigabytes future products.

Guess who just got an Internet Upgrade...



I can finally download Call of Duty at a reasonable time frame... Yay!!!

Congrats, Yuri.

To all Zen owners, this is of interest:

New Ryzen Chipset Driver Patches Security Vulnerabilities
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-chipset-driver-critical-security-fixes
A new Ryzen Chipset Driver update was released yesterday, version 3.08.17.735, that patches "critical security flaws" in the Platform Security Processor driver. AMD has not revealed the exact details of the security flaws that were patched, but we presume they could be related to a couple of current AMD flaws.

Right now, AMD has two vulnerabilities affecting all Ryzen based CPUs listed on AMD's website. One of these includes a Speculative code store bypass and floating-point value injection vulnerability, which can cause Ryzen CPUs to leak data when processing overwritten instructions when the CPU processes incorrect floating point numbers. The second vulnerability also relates to data leakage, called the Transient Execution of Non-canonical Accesses. This vulnerability can allow data leakage when the CPU executes a non-canonical load and stores those numbers with just 48 address bits or lower.

We're not completely sure these are the flaws AMD's new PSP driver has fixed. But either way, it would be best to update your Ryzen chipset drivers to this new version to insure you aren't exposed to unknown vulnerabilities. Especially when AMD classifies these security flaws as "critical."

You can download the latest driver here.

Nice!

Do you have a datacap on that or is it unlimited?
How many TB do you usually download per month?

Techpowerup checked how much only having 8 lanes slows you down, by comparing 8 lanes of PCIE 4.0 with the same amount of lanes on PCIE 3.0, 2.0 and even 1.1.: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt-pci-express-scaling/

The result is... a whole lot of nothing, really. On average at 1080p, where the drop is the largest in most cases, having to resort to PCIE 3.0 instead of 4.0 costs you a whole 2% of performance - and that's both rounded up and with 2 outlier with Hitman 3 (13.5%) and Death Stranding (6.8%). In most cases, the difference was barely measurable, let alone felt. Going from DDR4-3200 to 3600 has probably a higher effect on the FPS than having just 8 lanes of PCIE, 4.0 or otherwise. 

In fact, even just using PCIE 2.0 would only result in a 7% performance drop (again mainly due to the outlier), and only PCIE 1.1 where the difference was really felt and the average performance drop was 17%. By extrapolating the curve, they come to the conclusion that PCI4.0 x16 would have added that whole lot of 1% to the performance average, so really nothing to lose sleep about.

That being said, there's no guarantee that it will stay that way. It could be that in the future, those speeds could in fact really bottleneck enough to be truly felt. But that probably won't be before a couple years down the road.

How long is the Geekbench test?

If it's short enough, then it could have been performed completely or almost entirely under full boost, which is only marginally slower than on the K models. This is also one of the reasons why I take Geekbench results with a giant grain of salt, as they are pretty far removed from reality half the time.