If I remember correctly, DLSS 3 for Cyberpunk isn't out yet.

Pains me to say with AMD dropping the ball this gen and Nvidia doing Nvidia things.. Intel Arc could be a good alternative in the lower price tier brackets for GPU's. Assuming they can get the A770 closer to the RTX 3070, this wouldn't be a bad buy at all.

More performant than RX 6000 series in RT and double the VRAM than the 3070, at a lower cost.

I was just about to say that I think it's that time for me where AAA gaming is greatly outpacing my 1080ti, but then you made me realise it's not my GPU, it's the stupid amounts that are lacking in optimisation these days.

I still remember what a marvel battlefront I-II were like and while they did put strain on my GPU at 1440p, I was still able to run those two games at my fps cap (72) and still have headroom left over.

I think I'ma just bow out of AAA gaming y'know, because this year is off to a shitty start, and last year didn't fare any better. I already find AAA pricing is pushing me out of my price range, but bad optimisation is making any sort of risk of purchase a no-go for me. 

I feel like we're becoming fast reliant on the band aids that are FSR/DLSS, instead of what we previously relied on (raw power and native res), that it's making GPU power levels completely meaningless, if they cannot do what is stated on their tin labels. 

I'm not trying to defend AMD, as it is a catastrophe for sure. I'm just speculating where it all went wrong and why AMD did what they did.

What really surprises me about Dead Space is that it's a remake. EA should know that it's extremely difficult for a remake to outsell the original, and yet they've given the ok to a game with big performance troubles(*) that will limit its sales even more. Like WTH? It's like they're shooting their own foot.

(*) At least on PC, it remains to be seen if they've done the homework for the console releases or not.

I'm sorry if my point suggested that you were supporting AMD, I was just trying to use your comment as a starting point and go further ahead. Please accept my appologies if I caused some confusion.

Yee. Hopefully there will be some Raja fine wine kicking in sooner than later. I remember the days when a $300 1060 was as powerful if not more as the last gen $549 980. Was incredible value but alas those days are gone. If Intel can get their shit together, hopefully those days will one day come back.

Yea the requirements for the visual output makes little to no sense anymore. Cyberpunk imo is the benchmark of this generation for pc gaming because both the Raster and Ray Tracing looks incredible in that game and also the fact that it's open world makes it even more impressive. Yet for some reason, Cyberpunk runs better on a 4090 than Deadspace does in Raster... Like what? And Deadspace uses the old frostbite engine.

And tbh same goes for Forspoken. Both of them use old engines that should be running like a dream yet both of these games perform like ass on every platform. Makes zero sense what so ever. So yes, I think you are correct. The devs have largely phoned it in and are passing these games off as complete even though they are unoptimized just cause we now have good upscaling methods. Quite the shame really.

Ain't Nvidia advertising with it?

And I remember a lot of review sites with Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS 3 benchmarks.

But I just checked the PCGH-benchmark, they tested with a preview version:

I expected that the patch with the psycho-RT-settings also included DLSS 3

Is there a list of games with DLSS 3 already available today without the DLSS3-announcements?

Intel released it's Q4 2022 earnings... and they're not good.

it's revenue stands at 14 Billion dollar, while the market expected at least 14.4 Billion. Not too far off, but still below the mark. Out of those 14B, Datacenter and AI actually did a bit better than expected, coming in at 4.3 Billions versus 4 Billions expected, but that's still a 33% drop YoY. But the client computing segment, which includes consumer CPUs, is way down, at only 6.6 Billions versus 7.4 expected. And the latter is a drop from 10.3 Billions in Q4 2021, so a 36% drop in one year.

But wait, there's more: Gross Margins dropped precipitously from 53.6% last year to just 39.2 this year, and the quarter as a whole was a net loss of over 600 Millions for Intel, one of their highest losses ever. All this results in a very low Earnings Per Share of just 10 cents while analysts expected almost twice that with 19 cents per share.

The graphics segment did go up a bit (8% YoY, 1% QoQ), but still costs intel about twice as much as it earns. Intel really needs to steer that ship around fast, or investors might want Intel to ditch thar segment entirely in the near future.

Finally, we get to the guidance for Q1 2023. Here, Intel expects between 10.5 Billions and 11.5 Billions in revenue (14 Billions were expected by the market!), and the gross margin is expected to take another hit and drop to just 34%, coupled with a massive loss of 80 cents per share and thus also probably a big net loss on the horizon.

The only good news is that their Foundry activities seem to slowly take off, with a an increase of 30% YoY. But at just 319 Millions in the last quarter, it's simply too small so far to make much of a difference.

Here come the Friday news!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Vampire survival game passes three million sold, is adding castles with multiple floors
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-survival-game-passes-three-million-sold-is-adding-castles-with-multiple-floors/
V Rising emerged from its coffin into early access in May last year and found an audience ravenous for a bit of survival-tinged bloodsucking. Developer Stunlock Studios has now announced that the game has sold over 3 million copies, pretty incredible figures for a PC-only indie title that isn't even fully released, and thanks to such success the ambitions for the future are high.

The Humble Store (have you checked its Winter Sale yet?) has a new Flash Deal: Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters will be 45% off during 26 hours: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/warhammer-chaos-gate-winter-sale-featured-deals/.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Also Nothing-

GAMING NEWS

New Resident Evil 4 Remake official screenshots surface online
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-resident-evil-4-remake-official-screenshots-surface-online/
Capcom has released a new set of screenshots for Resident Evil 4 Remake, showcasing the beautiful visuals of the RE Engine. These brand new screenshots showcase the Salazar Castle which will be present in the remake.

Dead Space Remake and Redfall are using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dead-space-remake-and-redfall-are-using-the-denuvo-anti-tamper-tech/
Dead Space Remake releases tomorrow and although its Steam store page does not list the Denuvo anti-tamper tech, we can confirm that it will be using it. Furthermore, Arkane’s Redfall will be also using it.
>> It will be interesting to see how much does Denuvo has to do with the poor performance of Dead Space.

New Wild Hearts gameplay trailer focuses on the Golden Tempest beast
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-wild-hearts-gameplay-trailer-focuses-on-the-golden-tempest-beast/
Electronic Arts has released a new gameplay trailer for its upcoming hunting game, WILD HEARTS. This new trailer focuses on the Aragane or Golden Tempest beast, and packs around 5 minutes of gameplay footage.

The Callisto Protocol gets a new 548MB patch, does not fix its performance/optimization issues
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-callisto-protocol-gets-a-new-548mb-patch-does-not-fix-its-performance-optimization-issues/
Striking Distance Studios has just released a new 548MB patch for the PC version of The Callisto Protocol. And although the team has not revealed its complete changelog, we went ahead and tested this latest update.

Battlefield 2042 Update 3.2 releases next week, full patch notes revealed
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/battlefield-2042-update-3-2-releases-next-week-full-patch-notes-revealed/
DICE has announced that the highly anticipated Update 3.2 for Battlefield 2042 will release next week. This patch will introduce our familiar Class system to the game, allowing you to play as Assault, Engineer, Recon and Support. Furthermore, it will allow you to customize your class with Class Equipment, Class Gadgets and Weapon Proficiencies.

Friday news, part two:

Hitman 3's new name, new mode, and new graphics tech are here
https://www.pcgamer.com/hitman-3s-new-name-new-mode-and-new-graphics-tech-are-here/
The day is finally here, folks. Hitman 3 has evolved into a new form, becoming Hitman: World of Assassination, a newer and simpler version that casts off the original's baffling array of purchase options in favour of a single, easy-to-understand package that encompasses all three games, plus an optional deluxe pack that includes the DLC for 2 and 3.

Exclusive: The sickest pinball game of 2019 is getting a sequel
https://www.pcgamer.com/xenotilt-the-sickest-pinball-game-of-2019-is-getting-a-sequel/
Pinball contains multitudes. I mean, not just multiball—pinball has a rich history of games within games, like the mini pinball table below the playfield in The Munsters or the boxing minigame in Champion Pub. 2019's Demon's Tilt, a pinball game I loved, embraced the benefits of a virtual table by being multiple screens tall, throwing bullet hell attacks at your ball, and having more than one secret sub-table to discover (real-life bowling would be a lot cooler if there was a giant skull at the end of the lane).
The sequel goes full videogame: it adds guns.
>> There's a video of the game, in case you want to see it.

Meet Your Maker, one of the year's most promising shooters, is having an open beta in February
https://www.pcgamer.com/meet-your-maker-one-of-the-years-most-promising-shooters-is-having-an-open-beta-in-february/
Behaviour Interactive's Meet Your Maker, an asynchronous "first-person building-and-raiding game," earned a place on our list of 2023's most promising FPSes earlier this month, and pretty soon you'll be able to try it out yourself. The studio announced today that a week-long open beta will begin on Steam on February 6.

Bungie is finally giving players a way to earn classic shaders and armour sets
https://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2-lightfall-legacy-focusing-shaders/
(...)
In a post on the game's upcoming economy changes, Bungie finally reveals the long-teased "legacy focusing" system, and how it will let players earn old weapons and armour sets that no longer drop from the game's core activities—spending engrams earned from ranking up with their respective vendors to unlock or earn new roles on equipment that's otherwise no longer available. It's also announced a new section of Ada-1's armour shop, which—as of Lightfall's release—will stock a rotating selection of old shaders, three per week for the cost of 10,000 glimmer.

Bungie's narrative team reveals why SIVA never came back in Destiny 2
https://www.pcgamer.com/bungies-narrative-team-reveals-why-siva-never-came-back-in-destiny-2/
(...) Across Destiny's almost nine-year history, there's an absurd number of ideas and concepts. There are mysterious planetary anomalies, wish-granting dragons, and even the Nine—eldritch consciousnesses formed from loops of dark matter created from the gravity of the planets of our solar system. It's a wild ride.
But no dormant plot thread is as oft-discussed among the Destiny community as SIVA—the self-assembling, self-replicating nanotechnology that formed the basis of Destiny 1's Rise of Iron expansion. The tech was designed to accelerate humanity's ascent, specifically intended for use in easily constructing new colonies off-planet. But, as tends to be the way, SIVA ended up as a weapon used against us by a sect of Fallen known as the Devil Splicers.

Hogwarts Legacy will have more than 100 sidequests and doesn't care if you cast evil spells
https://www.pcgamer.com/hogwarts-legacy-will-have-more-than-100-sidequests-and-doesnt-care-if-you-cast-evil-spells/
Hogwarts Legacy will have more than 100 sidequests, and it won't just give players something different to do when they need a break. Narrative director Moira Squier told our colleagues at GamesRadar that the way players take on those sideline activities can have an impact on the main campaign.

The Day Before developers now say the launch delay was planned before the Steam takedown
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-day-before-developers-now-say-the-launch-delay-was-planned-before-the-steam-takedown/
It's been a super-weird ride for The Day Before, the open world zombie survival game being developed by Propnight studio Fntastic. The hype was incredible—it was the second-most-wishlisted game on Steam, behind only Hogwarts Legacy, despite virtually nothing being known about it—but just days before Fntastic was due to finally show off the first raw gameplay in two years, The Day Before was completely removed from Steam.
In a statement released on January 25, Fntastic said the removal was the result of a trademark claim against the title, which it only found out about on January 19. Because of the dispute, the planned gameplay reveal was put on hold, and the release date was pushed back from March 1 to November 10.
In a new interview with IGN, however, Fntastic founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev said the delay was actually planned before the trademark dispute came to light.

Valve's unusual corporate structure causes its problems, report suggests
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-unusual-corporate-structure-causes-its-problems-report-suggests/
It's well-known that Valve doesn't work like other game studios. Valve's flat corporate structure means that, as its own New Employee Handbook reads, "we don’t have any management, and nobody 'reports to' anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even he isn't your manager." The symbol of this freedom is the office's wheeled desks, which allow employees to form ad hoc teams by moving
together when someone—anyone—proposes a project that interests others, then wheeling away once they decide to move on.
It sounds like a wonderful place to work, free from hierarchy and bureaucracy. However, according to a new video by People Make Games (a channel dedicated to investigative game journalism created by Chris Bratt and Anni Sayers), Valve employees, both former and current, say it's resulted in a workplace two of them compared to The Lord of The Flies.

Russia says popular games have 'hidden inserts' targeting its youth, and it wants to whip up a ban list
https://www.pcgamer.com/russia-says-popular-games-have-hidden-inserts-targeting-its-youth-and-it-wants-to-whip-up-a-ban-list/
Russia's quest to remake its videogame industry continues. This time, reports Kommersant, the country's government has tasked the Prosecutor General's office and various ministries with protecting Russian kids from the "negative influence" of games. What kind of negative influence? Well, a commission under the council of legislators looking into the matter alleges that a bunch of unnamed popular videogames contain "hidden inserts" and "ways of spreading information that affect one's consciousness and subconscious".
>> They'll likely go for the games with LGBT content.

Darktide studio admits the state of the game means promised features are being 'pushed back'
https://www.pcgamer.com/darktide-studio-admits-the-state-of-the-game-means-promised-features-are-being-pushed-back/
Fatshark's Warhammer 40,000: Darktide launched in early access in November 2022 and, despite being a pretty good game as it stands, is far from complete. To the extent that a lot of players have lost patience pretty quickly, and the Steam reviews are now mostly negatives that all complain about the same thing: This game doesn't just feel like it's early access, but that it's unfinished. Needless to say, the presence of in-game microtransactions hasn't helped the mood.
The studio has now issued something of a holding statement alongside a laundry list of minor tweaks in a new patch, but I'm not sure how persuasive players will find it. This follows hot on the heels of an open letter from the CEO and co-founder of Fatshark (...)

Last year's most ridiculous FMV game is getting a VR version
https://www.pcgamer.com/last-years-most-ridiculous-fmv-game-is-getting-a-vr-version/
Not For Broadcast, the thoroughly ridiculous full-motion propaganda sim, is getting a VR version. Now, you'll have to use your fallible mortal hands to exercise strict control over Britain's media diet, making sure its ever-more calamitous government keeps looking slick and ship-shape even while everything collapses. Perish the thought.

And here are the GOG and Steam deals for the weekend:

+GOG

• GOG is giving away a new Goodie Pack during the next 55 hours. Learn more here: https://www.gog.com/en/news/claim_cd_projekt_red_goodies_collection_and_watch_the_new_trailer_for_the_witcher_3_complete_edition
• The first of the four new Deal of the Day is Medieval Dynasty, 25% off during 70 https://www.gog.com/en/game/medieval_dynasty"> https://www.gog.com/en/game/medieval_dynasty
• Hard West 2 gets a 45% discount: https://www.gog.com/en/game/hard_west_2
• Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion, the third DotD wil be 70% off: https://www.gog.com/en/game/knights_and_merchants_the_peasants_rebellion
• And the last one is HUNTDOWN, with an 80% discount. https://www.gog.com/en/game/huntdown

+Steam

• The first Weekend Deal is Football Manager 2023, that has a demo, 20% off until February 2nd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1904540/Football_Manager_2023/
• Juno: New Origins gets a 35% discount until next Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/870200/Juno_New_Origins/
• HITMAN 3/HITMAN World of Assassination, that also has a demo, is going to be 45% off until Thursday, 2nd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1659040/HITMAN_3/
• Rain World will be 60% off until... yep, the 2nd of February once again: https://store.steampowered.com/app/312520/Rain_World/
• SCARLET NEXUS, that has a demo as well, will be free to try during the weekend and 75% off until Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/775500/SCARLET_NEXUS/
• Watch Dogs®: Legion arrives at Steam with an 80% discount until Thursday, February, 2nd: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2239550/Watch_Dogs_Legion/
• And lastly we have PlayWay's Car Mechanic Simulator Franchise Sale, with up to 90% discounts until the 9th of February: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/CMSfranchisesale2023

And with that, we've reached the end. Until next time, I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.