I suppose the only saving grace would be that Nvidia/AMD doesn't launch with their more budget cards until the following year and I heavily doubt Arc can even compete with 4070 or 7700XT. If anything, it would probably be 4060/7600XT tier.

I was watching Digital Foundry's The Medium analysis as it released on ps5 and I saw this comparison:

It reminds me this meme:

Now I am not knocking on the consoles but it is why I keep recommending on getting GPUs that do well with Ray Tracing as it's only going to get more and more heavy.

Nintendo has patented their own form of Ai Upscaling.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/ninty-files-patent-for-dlss-2-0-proprietary-4k-technology.1620019/

Kind of interesting that they would patent their own. Now of course, companies patent technologies that they never use all the time so it could be that they will still use DLSS in their next gen switch 2. But who knows at this point. It would be odd of them to try and make their own version of DLSS as so far, other than Nvidia, Intel is the only one that is able to roll out an Ai upscaling tech which no one really knows how it will perform. MS demoed DirectML but it never became anything as of yet. And Nintendo is a far smaller company so we will see. It does of course allow them to keep the upscaling tech without needing to go with Nvidia so that's one advantage. But perhaps the main reason could be that Nvidia is asking a little too much for the privilege of using DLSS. It will be interesting to see what will happen.

Intel Alder Lake-P (Mobile) featuring up to 14 cores, DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 support listed in leaked roadmap

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-alder-lake-p-featuring-up-to-14-cores-ddr5-and-pcie-gen5-support-listed-in-leaked-roadmap

The irony of mobile is while Zen 3 has major battery life advantages over Tiger Lake but as a platform, it's not competitive at all. Zen 3 mobile is limited to PCI-E Gen 3 vs Tiger Lake's Gen 4 and on top, Zen 3 mobile only gives 8 lanes for GPU where as Tiger Lake gives 16 lanes. If this is true, then Alder Lake mobile will be giving laptop users DDR5 and PCI-E Gen 5 which is insane! Hopefully the battery life will be half decent.

Well, Nintendo doing their own thing is not really surprising, even if it comes back to bite them in the arse. I find it interesting how they use 540p and 1080p for their example, but I surely hope the Switch 2 can do at least 720p natively on handheld mode (with the same 720p OLED screen of their soon to come revision).

In any case, this all but confirms that Nintendo will use a "new-ish" SoC, one that's capable of DLSS/Nintendo's tech, which is nice.

Honestly... Seeing some mixxed messaging about the 12900K in enthusiast circles... With the chip being a monster in AVX512 tasks, but coming up short against the Ryzen 9 5900/5950 12/16 core chips in the real world.

My bets are it will be attractive processor for those on older systems looking for an upgrade though.

At the very least, competition with Ryzen 9 might force some lower Ryzen pricing.

Afaik, it doesn't do AVX512 unlike Rocket Lake so all the leaks and such are based on AVX256

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16881/a-deep-dive-into-intels-alder-lake-microarchitectures/5

It will be interesting to see how it performs though. I suspect the Big Cores should be faster than Ryzen by 10-15% while the small cores will be noticeably slower. As always, we need to wait and see the reviews.

The Monday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Amazon's New World keeps up the momentum, peaking at over 913,000 players
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/amazons-new-world-keeps-up-the-momentum-peaking-at-over-913000-players/
It's fair to say that Amazon Games had a less-than-spectacular track record in videogames before New World. But the MMO appears to be a new start for the publisher, to the extent even Jeff Bezos took a break from space hijinks to herald it: "after many setbacks and failures, we have a success." At that time the MMO was riding high with 800,000 concurrent players, but its first weekend in the wild saw the number rise even higher and, Sunday evening US time, it hit an all-time peak of 913,634 players (per SteamDb).

GOG has several sales:

• The Anniversary Sale, with up to 90% discounts (and some recommended collections), will last another 2 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/gog_13th_birthday
• Talking about the Anniversary, GOG launched a contest during the weekend. Check it out here: https://www.gog.com/news/bjoin_our_anniversary_contestb
• There's also a new Weekly Sale, with Business and Tyconn games up to 80% off: https://www.gog.com/promo/20211004_weekly_sale
• And there's also an SNK Sale, with up to 70% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/snk_sale

Steam has a new daily deal: Neo Cab is 70% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/794540/Neo_Cab/

The Humble Store has two new sales:

• The Sandbox Sale features up to 80% discounts during the next 4 days. There are keys for Steam, GOG and EGS: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/sandbox-sale/
• And publisher Fatshark offers its games with up to 90% discounts during the next 4 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/fatshark-publisher-sale/

And Fanatical has several new sales:

• The new Star Deal is Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Digital Deluxe, 85% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition-digital-deluxe
• This is part of a Beamdog publisher Sale, with up to 85% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/beamdog
• The Outer Worlds will be 70% off during the next 7 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/the-outer-worlds
• Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is going to be 55% off during an undisclosed period: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/fall-guys-ultimate-knockout
• The new October Platinum BYOB has launched with 19 games to build your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/platinum-collection-build-your-own-bundle
• And there's also a new contest to win a £100 Fanatical Voucher & Cyberpower Peripheral Set. Learn more here: https://www.fanatical.com/en/blog/contest-win-cyberpower-gaming-accessories-fanatical-spending-spree

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Dark Souls 3 Mod rebalances and adds new weapons & spells to the game
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/dark-souls-3-mod-rebalances-and-adds-new-weapons-spells-to-the-game/
Modder ‘Rombodawg’ has released a new gameplay mod for Dark Souls 3. According to the modder, PVP Enhanced Mod re-balances its weapons and spells, and adds a new weapon and spells to the game in a DLC-like fashion.
Do note that you should not use this mod on the official servers. This mod is only for the Dark Souls 3 Banned/Penalized servers.
Unfortunately, the modder has not provided a list of changes. All we know is that the mod brings 32 new spells, 1 new weapon, and items to the shrine handmaids shop that previously were inaccessible.
>> Available from Nexus Mods.

Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas is an MP mod for GTA San Andreas, Version 1.5.9 released
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/multi-theft-auto-san-andreas-is-an-mp-mod-for-gta-san-andreas-version-1-5-9-released/
The Multi Theft Auto team has released a brand new version of its online/multiplayer mod for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. As its name implies, Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas adds full online gaming support to Rockstar’s GTA San Andreas.
(...)
But anyway, Version 1.5.9 adds 49 new functions and 16 new events. Moreover, it fixes 77+ bugs.
>> You'll find it at ModDB.

This Fallout 3 Mod overhauls all textures for armour, clothing and headgear
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-fallout-3-mod-overhauls-all-textures-for-armour-clothing-and-headgear/
Modder ‘Kuzja80’ has released a new HD Texture Pack for Fallout 3. This mod overhauls every piece of armour, clothing, and headgear from the base game and DLC. The mod uses AI techniques in order to upscale all of the original textures to 2K.
>> If you're interested, go to Nexus Mods to get it.

Half-Life: Alyx – No VR Mod looks bloody amazing in this latest update
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/half-life-alyx-no-vr-mod-looks-bloody-amazing-in-this-latest-update/
SoMNst has released a new video update, showcasing an unreleased No VR Mod for Half-Life: Alyx. This new VR Mod promises to be better than anything we’ve seen to date, and will make the game perfectly playable on non-VR devices.
As said, this mod is not available yet for download. Moreover, there is no ETA on when it will come out. Still, and as you will see, this mod looks bloody amazing.

Valheim mods overhaul magic, reduce grinding, remove boss healing
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/valheim-gameplay-mods-overhaul-magic-reduce-grinding-remove-boss-healing-more/
A number of cool gameplay mods for Valheim surfaced last week, so we’ve decided to collect and share them in one article. Thus, you can find below mods that overhaul the game’s magic, reduce grinding, remove/reduce boss healing, allow players to auto-pick items and improve the boating mechanics.
>> You'll find the Nexus Mods links to all those five mods in the article.

This Skyrim Mod adds 132 new creatures & 35 new areas to the game
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-skyrim-mod-adds-132-new-creatures-35-new-areas-to-the-game/
Modder ‘Mihail’ has released a new amazing mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This mod aims to turn Skyrim into a magical world, filled with ancient mysteries and exciting challenges, populated by everything from raging Minotaurs to Goblins.
Going into more details, this mod adds 132 new creatures, 22 weapons, 11 spells, 41 new ingredients and 35 new areas. Furthermore, the modder plans to release a future version, called Dark Fantasy Pack. Dark Fantasy Pack will include creatures and beings more connected to the dark fantasy universe.
This mod is currently available only for Skyrim Legacy Edition. Thankfully, though, Mihail will soon release a version for Skyrim Special Edition.
>> You can download it from Nexus Mods.

This super-realistic Minecraft grass will probably set your PC on fire
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-super-realistic-minecraft-grass-will-probably-set-your-pc-on-fire/
If you love cool Minecraft texture packs and also setting your PC on fire, then please bear witness to this mod that turns your flat, blocky grass into a lush field of realistic, ultra-satisfying greenery. Mmm, I can smell the burning already.
This wizardry is the work of NicoRTX, who shared some screenshots of their work to the Minecraft subreddit. It looks pretty damn stunning, further juxtaposed by the still-blocky stone cube that the grass drapes itself around.
You can even give it a whirl for yourself if you fancy stressing out your PC for a hot sec, as NicoRTX has uploaded the texture pack to Planet Minecraft with the apt descriptor "super realistic grass make my PC blow up!"

GAMING NEWS

Here are nine minutes of PC gameplay footage from Monster Hunter Rise
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-are-nine-minutes-of-pc-gameplay-footage-from-monster-hunter-rise/
A couple of days ago, Capcom announced that Monster Hunter Rise will release on PC on January 12th, 2022. And earlier today, IGN shared a video showing nine minutes of gameplay footage from this upcoming PC version.

Arise of Awakener is a new action RPG, inspired by Dragon’s Dogma
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/arise-of-awakener-is-a-new-action-rpg-inspired-by-dragons-dogma/
Gamera Game has announced a new action RPG, Arise of Awakener. When I first heard about this game, I thought it was another Souls-like game. However, it appears that the game is inspired by Dragon’s Dogma, and not by the Dark Souls games.

Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream releases on February 25th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/atelier-sophie-2-the-alchemist-of-the-mysterious-dream-releases-on-february-25th/
KOEI Tecmo has announced the sequel to Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream. In order to celebrate this announcement, the company released the game’s debut trailer that you can find below.

Back 4 Blood will be now using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/back-4-blood-will-be-now-using-the-denuvo-anti-tamper-tech/
Warner Bros has updated the Steam store page for Back 4 Blood, revealing that the game will be now using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. Back 4 Blood will release on October 12th and its Steam store page had not included Denuvo when its pre-orders went live earlier this Summer.

Wanted: Dead is a new action sci-fi game from former Ninja Gaiden & Dead or Alive developers
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/wanted-dead-is-a-new-action-sci-fi-game-from-former-ninja-gaiden-dead-or-alive-developers/
110 Industries and Soleil have announced Wanted: Dead. Wanted: Dead is a fast-action sci-fi game from a team of former Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive developers.

First gameplay trailer released for River City Girls 2
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/first-gameplay-trailer-released-for-river-city-girls-2/
Arc System Works has released the first gameplay trailer for River City Girls 2. River City Girls 2 is a side-scrolling beat ’em up, and a sequel to River City Girls (duh).

Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires releases on February 15th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dynasty-warriors-9-empires-releases-on-february-15th/
KOEI Tecmo has announced that Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires will release on February 15th, 2022. In order to celebrate this announcement, the company has also released a new trailer that you can find below.

Vengeance Is Mine is a new third-person mech combat action game
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/vengeance-is-mine-is-a-new-third-person-mech-combat-action-game/
110 Industries has announced a new third-person mech combat action game, Vengeance Is Mine. In addition, the company has released a teaser trailer for it that you can find below.

Genshin Impact Update 2.2 brings DualSense controller support on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/genshin-impact-update-2-2-brings-dualsense-controller-support-on-pc/
miHoYo has announced that Patch 2.2 for Genshin Impact will release on October 13th. According to the team, this new update will bring DualSense Controller support on PC.

Monday news, part two:

Paradox abandons multiple unannounced projects to focus on 'proven game niches'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/paradox-abandons-multiple-unannounced-projects-to-focus-on-proven-game-niches/
One month after the surprise departure of former CEO Ebba Ljungerud, Paradox Interactive has announced the cancellation of work on several unannounced projects. Paradox said it decided to pull the plug on the games so that it can instead focus on "proven game niches and projects that better meet the company’s requirements on returns and risk."

Rumor: Konami working on new Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Silent Hill games
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/konami-metal-gear-castlevania-silent-hill-games/
Konami is getting back into the business of making Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Silent Hill games, a report from VideoGamesChronicle indicates.
>> lightbleeder already made a thread about this last Friday.

The director of the best Final Fantasys is putting out his first new game in 15 years
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-director-of-the-best-final-fantasys-is-putting-out-his-first-new-game-in-15-years/
The game in this trailer does not look like a big deal. Really, it looks like the furthest thing away from a big deal: just a tiny, experimental game somehow being published by Square Enix. But to me it's a bigger deal than anything else Square Enix has made in years—bigger than the Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Final Fantasy 16 or Guardians of the Galaxy. That's because of one name: Hiroyuki Ito.

Here's a game about a gruesome spider-legged train named Charles
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/heres-a-survival-horror-game-about-a-gruesome-spider-legged-train-named-charles/
Indie studio Two Star Games is working on a new kind of horror: Trains. Choo-Choo Charles is a game where you, a human, navigate an island on a train and avoid an evil, sentient trail that wants to eat you. Over time you upgrade your train to fight Charles, hopefully overcoming the creature which is in fact a steam locomotive with a set of horrific spider legs and a toothy maw.

Elder Scrolls Online's infernal Deadlands expansion hits in November
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/elder-scrolls-onlines-infernal-deadlands-expansion-hits-in-november/
Elder Scrolls Online players are getting ready to venture into Oblivion, specifically into Mehrunes Dagon's Deadlands, the fiery realm of destruction. An event called Bounties of Blackwood will run until October 12, and that ties directly into the prologue, An Apocalyptic Situation, a quest available through the Crown Store.
The Deadlands DLC expansion is set to launch on November 1. It can be bought through the

Full New World servers will no longer allow character creation
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/full-new-world-servers-will-no-longer-allow-character-creation/
As MMO players flock to Amazon Game Studios' New World player numbers blow up, Amazon has taken the measure of stopping new character creation on full servers. They've also launched a Server Status page for New World, which will tell you if it's full, up, down, or undergoing maintenance. Amazon Game Studios announced the change via Twitter.

Build castles to survive the Mongols in a free wave defense RTS
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/build-castles-to-survive-the-mongols-in-a-free-wave-defense-rts/
Vedelem: The Golden Horde is a wave survival real-time strategy game set during the time of the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe. As the Golden Horde bears down on you, your job is to build economic buildings in order to expand your territory, gather resources, and pump out more troops for large-scale engagements with the enemy's ever-growing numbers. All the while, you want to fortify and upgrade your lands, giving you manned walls and buildings between your central keep and the enemy army.
>> You can find it at Steam.

Friday the 13th developer IllFonic is working on a Ghostbusters game
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/friday-the-13th-developer-illfonic-is-working-on-a-ghostbusters-game/
As spotted by PCGamesN, an interview with singer/songwriter/record producer Raphael Saadiq in a recent episode of the Questlove Supreme podcast is the unlikely source of a leak about an upcoming Ghostbusters videogame.

Grand Theft Auto modders that tried to get around a DMCA claim get walloped with Take-Two lawsuit
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/grand-theft-auto-modders-that-tried-to-get-around-a-dmca-claim-get-walloped-with-take-two-lawsuit/
The existence of the GTA Trilogy remaster was more-or-less confirmed by the Korean ratings board last week, but the rumours have been gathering pace for a while: not least because Rockstar parent company Take-Two has been getting very heavy-handed with modders of the original games on PC. (...)
(...)
It's perhaps worth picking the bones out of this. The modders thought they could be cute by using the mechanisms of DMCAs to reinstate their project, perhaps not realising that Take-Two were prepared to bring out the big guns. Take-Two clearly could have responded to the modders' counterclaim if it had so wished: instead it allowed the mods to reappear on Github. So yes, the modders could have perhaps been wiser. But it really feels like Take-Two saw this as an opportunity to set an example.

Valheim patch tweaks weapons and food, adds festive Jack-o'-turnip
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/valheim-patch-tweaks-weapons-and-food-adds-festive-jack-o-turnip/
Valheim's developers continue to tweak the balance of last month's Hearth and Home update, trying to find a happy medium between the way the game used to work and how it works now. Once again, the game has been nudged to make things a bit easier on players with a patch that buffs the stats of a number of foods and lowers the stamina costs of using most melee weapons.

By the way, the guys at Backblaze have posted a new report, this time copmparing its SSDs and HDDs:

Are SSDs Really More Reliable Than Hard Drives?
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/are-ssds-really-more-reliable-than-hard-drives/

Solid-state drives (SSDs) continue to become more and more a part of the data storage landscape. And while our SSD 101 series has covered topics like upgrading, troubleshooting, and recycling your SSDs, we’d like to test one of the more popular declarations from SSD proponents: that SSDs fail much less often than our old friend, the hard disk drive (HDD). This statement is generally attributed to SSDs having no moving parts and is supported by vendor proclamations and murky mean time between failure (MTBF) computations. All of that is fine for SSD marketing purposes, but for comparing failure rates, we prefer the Drive Stats way: direct comparison. Let’s get started.

As you can see, SSDs seem to win by a mile, but there's quite a difference when it comes to the age of the drives. So, the guys at Backblaze did an apples to apples comparison:

Things don't look so different now, do they? The ressemblance is even bigger when you put them in a graph:

As they state:

"As the graph shows, beginning in 2018, the HDD boot drive failure rate accelerated. This continued in 2019 and 2020 before leveling off in 2021 (so far). To state the obvious, as the age of the HDD boot drive fleet increased, so did the failure rate.

One point of interest is the similarity in the two curves through their first four data points. For the HDD cohort, year five (2018) was where the failure rate acceleration began. Is the same fate awaiting our SSDs as they age? While we can expect some increase in the AFR as the SSD age, will it be as dramatic as the HDD line?"

so regarding new world, is it going to replace a +1000hour game like FF/wow etc? i doubt it with its current incarnation