PC Gaming

Intel has released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, Version 101.4826 Beta, which bring Game On driver support on Intel Arc A-series Graphics for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Payday 3, Lies of P, and Party Animals games. New drivers as improve performance in Hitman Absolution and Bioshock Infinite under DirectX 11.

The driver fixes some issues in Trackmania (DX11) game, which experienced application crash during launch, as well as some an issue with Intel Arc Control, which may consume higher than expected system memory. There is still an extensive list of known issues, and we are still waiting for further Starfield fixes, as there are still plenty of issues with textures and instability.

The GPU stress test and benchmarking tool is set to receive its first major upgrade (public release) since 2007, although a beta version has been made available to download since December 2022—accessible via the Geeks3D Discord group. A late August update had the beta reaching a new milestone in version 2.0.10—fixing various bugs, expanding GPU support and adding more resolution options.

The new version of FurMark supports OpenGL or Vulkan graphics APIs, and its three preset benchmark options include 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p resolutions. Users can also customize parameters for different graphical and resolution settings. A results database is already active, but Tom's Hardware notes that it consists of data submitted by beta users, thus it does not log: "results from the previous version of the app." The development team has teased a loose later this month launch window for FurMark 2.0 in public form.

Grand Theft Auto 6 has yet to be announced, but last year, we managed to get a glimpse at the sixth main entry in the series by Rockstar Games thanks to some leaked videos. While there's been nothing since, official or otherwise, some dedicated fans have provided something new on the highly anticipated game this week.

The GTA VI document, which can be found here, is a 60-page document going over characters, interface, weapons, vehicles, and pretty much every little detail that could be gleaned from last year's leaked videos, making the document an incredibly interesting read for all fans of the series.

Very little is currently known about Grand Theft Auto 6 other than the fact that it is in the works. A few months back, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick commented on Rockstar Games' approach to development, saying that each new game of theirs needs to be "something you've never seen before on the one hand, and it needs to reflect the feeling we have about Grand Theft Auto." This was a very interesting statement, considering that, on the surface, the new entry in the series didn't look that different from its predecessors, although that could be due to the fact that the footage was captured from an early version of the game.

Today we are taking a look at what can really only be best described
as an absolutely absurd product that makes no sense if you look at it from a value perspective -- at least the kind of value that we normally talk about you know cost per frame that sort of stuff.

As part of the recent Microsoft leaks, a slate of Bethesda games - including several unannounced titles - have been revealed.

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According to this now potentially-outdated leak, a new Doom game called Doom Year Zero was planned for sometime during the current financial year. This game is slated to have additional DLC released the same year, as well as another DLC planned for next financial year.

Another title that's yet to be announced is Dishonored 3. This was listed as coming sometime during next financial year (April 2024 to March 2025). This is reportedly the same year that Bethesda also has plans to release a sequel to 2022's Ghostwire: Tokyo.

The list also states that players can expect remasters of previous Bethesda titles, such as Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Ever been on the receiving end of a digital defeat, courtesy of a player whose nickname sounded like a bedtime story? But fear not, fellow gamers, for today, we embark on a humorous journey to boost your online masculinity to epic proportions. "Pwned by a 'FluffyKitten'? Nah, We Choose 'LordLumberjack'!" Choosing the perfect in-game nickname isn't just about typing random words and numbers; it's an art form, a declaration of your virtual identity. The right nickname can strike fear into your opp

Ever been on the receiving end of a digital defeat, courtesy of a player whose nickname sounded like a bedtime story? But fear not, fellow gamers, for today, we embark on a humorous journey to boost your online masculinity to epic proportions. "Pwned by a 'FluffyKitten'? Nah, We Choose 'LordLumberjack'!" Choosing the perfect in-game nickname isn't just about typing random words and numbers; it's an art form, a declaration of your virtual identity. The right nickname can strike fear into your opp

A week after Unity announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model - drawing immediate and widespread condemnation from the development community - the company has reportedly told staff it'll be making adjustments to the controversial new pricing plan.

As reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Unity leadership addressed employees in an all-hands meeting held earlier today (a meeting originally planned for late last week was cancelled following a "potential threat" from an employee), saying the company was "considering" introducing a cap on its hugely unpopular new per-install fees.

Unity initially caused an outcry last Tuesday, when it told developers that, on top of their existing Unity Engine licence subscription, they'd be expected to pay an additional monthly Unity Runtime Fee each time a user installed their game, starting on 1st January 2024. This would apply to all games, including those already on the market, that had made $200k USD or more in the last 12 months and had at least 200k lifetime game installs.

Following in the wake of last month's sizeable 4.0 update, Genshin Impact’s latest patch is arriving next week - and we now know what to expect from the 4.1 release.

4.1 - aka To the Stars Shining in the Depths - continues the watery theme of 4.0 by expanding the sunken region of Fontaine into a new northern area. Up there you’ll find the Fortress of Meropide, ruins and floating platforms to explore.

Those areas will play host to new quests in Fontaine's Archon quest line, introducing long-awaited villain character Arlecchino, the Fatui Harbinger, as the player searches for Childe.

Trailer

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Genshin Impact’s 4.1 update will release on September 27th.

Welcome to the world of gaming, where innovation meets eccentricity. Gamers, much like any other subculture, have their fair share of trends and products that, while well-intentioned, often land on the cringe-worthy spectrum. In this blog post, we're diving headfirst into the top 5 cringe-worthy items that you might find in a gaming setup. From gaming gloves that look like you're about to perform open-heart surgery to energy drinks that promise to turn you into a gaming superhero, prepare for a

To celebrate 2023's World Cleanup Day, publisher Secret Mode has confirmed that indie Loddlenaut – a game all about clearing up the pollution left behind by evil megacorps – will release on 16th November 2023.

The "creature-raising survival game" lets you explore an open-world, alien planet, raise your own loddles, clear up debris with your bubble gun, recycle trash to create upgrades and more helpful items, and unlock new gadgets to ensure you can clear up even the most stubborn ocean pollution.

trailer
steam page

Unity has apologised following the furore around its disastrous plans to charge developers when people download games made using its technology.

The plans prompted an enormous backlash from developers across the industry, and threw up a multitude of questions around how the new policy would work in practice - answers which Unity belatedly scrambled to work out itself.

This morning, Unity said it was sorry for the "confusion and angst" its changes had caused, and promised it would make unspecified "changes" to its plans.

But despite days of confusion, Unity said it still needed more time to confirm what these changes might be - and the suggestion certainly seems to be that these changes will fall short of the full U-turn developers have called for.

That's effectively half the Steam Deck's GPU for near twice the price.

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Asus has announced it's going to be shipping the ROG Ally Z1 edition handheld PC starting from October 3 for the painfully high price of $599 (£599). This new device will ship with essentially the same base hardware as the top-spec ROG Ally, which sports the full AMD Z1 Extreme APU, so in a way you can see why it's only $100 cheaper.

After all, you're still getting the same lovely 500cd/m2 120Hz 1080p display, the same 512GB SSD, 16GB LPDDR5-6400, and a UHS-II microSD slot that may or may not melt the contents of which into so much silicon slag.

The issue is that, while the AMD Z1 is a supremely interesting chip, it's very underpowered in gaming terms compared with the Z1 Extreme because it's using the 740M iGPU as opposed to the powerful 780M option. The top chip then has the full complement of 12 compute units (CUs)—the same as the Ryzen 7 7840U that's powering all the best handheld gaming PCs right now—but the plain Z1 is rocking only a third of that.

With just four CUs you're getting 256 shaders compared with the 768 of the full Z1 Extreme chip. And that effectively puts it at half the GPU silicon of the Aerith APU at the heart of the Steam Deck. Yeah, a theoretical halving of the gaming performance of the Deck, but with a $599 price tag. Ouch.

Aesthetically Astrea makes a very strong first impression. Set in a slightly dreamlike world of astral mages and eldritch corruption, there’s a wide assortment of cute animal-people to play as, including well-dressed sharks, bees and (my personal favorite) robot crocodiles clad in swish wizardly robes, battling against warped ‘corrupted’ versions of their kith and kin.

While 2D animation is used sparingly on the watercolor backdrops and character art (featuring a lovely light palette of blues, reds and little inbetween), everything bobs and weaves with excited anticipation. The soundtrack, while perhaps a tad generic and orchestral, still has some memorable melodies. I didn't get sick of them, anyway, important for a game built on repetition.

Over the weekend, Starfield players began to share reports of a strange paranormal infestation. There are asteroids in the game that, for reasons known only to gods and/or programmers, follow you from orbit to orbit, flying eerily in formation with your ship, and sometimes even accompanying you to a planet's surface. "In one of my weirdest Bethesda glitch experiences, I've got a tiny asteroid that's been following me for the past 30 hours," user ReverendRoo posted on Reddit, triggering an avalanche of comments reminiscent of UFO chasers spotting each other at a NASA open day. "I would catch a glimpse of it from time to time," wrote fattfett. "I tried to approach it but you can't. It stays away. I assumed it had a deeper meaning [toward] the endgame." Some players, like Blackdius, have multiple asteroids in tow. It seems impossible to blow them up. I've dug up a Youtube video below of one such clingy space boulder from a couple of weeks back. As you can see, it's not just a fixed background point like a screen artefact, but seems to move in response to the player's ship. Most peculiar.

From the looks of it, legendary development studio id Software is working on a new version of its proprietary game engine - id Tech 8.

While most suspected it was coming, last week Capcom officially announced a new version Resident Evil 4 Separate Ways, the side story featuring Ada Wong from the original version of the game, would be launching this week. That initial announcement didn’t include much gameplay, but now Capcom has delivered a launch trailer full of juicy moments.

In terms of actual gameplay, the biggest takeaway from the Separate Ways trailer is the expanded role of Ada’s grappling gun. While she had the gun in the original version of Separate Ways, it was mostly something used contextually at certain set points, whereas now it seems to be fully integrated into gameplay. We see Ada use it to both traverse the environment and take on enemies, robbing them of their shields.

YouTube Launch Trailer

...priced at 450 us right now the RTX 4060 TI 16 gigabyte is 25% cheaper than the RTX 4070, though most models are still priced up around the 500 US MSRP making them just 17 percent cheaper. Which is still a nice discount I suppose and you do get that extra VRAM with the 4060 TI.

That said though you are also getting 26 fewer Cuda cores and 11 reduction in L2 cash and with slower memory and a more limited memory. Bus bandwidth has been reduced by a massive 43 percent so there's likely going to be numerous instances where the 4060 TI is a lot slower.

It's now available on Steam with a 90 percent discount for just £2.99. Similarly, on PSN and Xbox it's £4.49.

Back in January, Crystal Dynamics announced that support for the live-service game would end on 30th September this year and will no longer be available to purchase after this date. Its final update was at the end of March.

Explore amazon gaming setup deals with discounts ranging from 25% to 90% off. Discover the best products and accessories to elevate your gaming experience this month.

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It's time to turn your home into a tech-savvy playground where even your pet goldfish will appreciate your style. Amazon's got the goods, and we've got the wit to guide you through it all. Say goodbye to ordinary and hello to extraordinary. Ready, set, geekify! Check out the video, you can find all the links to Amazon under Featured Products Featured Products: 15. Curtain Opener: https://amzn.to/3EsTbRj 14. Scotter Luggage: https://amzn.to/44yVo8d 13. Height Increaser: https://amzn.to/47XZ1ro 11

Welcome to the world of gaming, where innovation meets eccentricity. Gamers, much like any other subculture, have their fair share of trends and products that, while well-intentioned, often land on the cringe-worthy spectrum. In this blog post, we're diving headfirst into the top 5 cringe-worthy items that you might find in a gaming setup. From gaming gloves that look like you're about to perform open-heart surgery to energy drinks that promise to turn you into a gaming superhero, prepare for a

It's time to turn your home into a tech-savvy playground where even your pet goldfish will appreciate your style. Amazon's got the goods, and we've got the wit to guide you through it all. Say goodbye to ordinary and hello to extraordinary. Ready, set, geekify! Check out the video, you can find all the links to Amazon under Featured Products Featured Products: 15. Curtain Opener: https://amzn.to/3EsTbRj 14. Scotter Luggage: https://amzn.to/44yVo8d 13. Height Increaser: https://amzn.to/47XZ1ro 11

Your job, in Stick to the Plan, is to help Roberto get his sticks from one point to another. It's an adorably simple puzzle game from indie dev Dead Pixel Tales, and it focuses on funny new solutions to puzzles and weird twists rather than brain-burning difficulty. It's what I'd call a relaxing puzzle game, one that delights you rather than frustrates you.

Stick to the Plan is about 70 levels long, and comes with an environmental ambient soundtrack that sets the mood for a relaxing, wholesome puzzling experience. It also has accessibility options, like bright outlines for Roberto and the many, many sticks. Illustrated comic bits outline a cute little dog story between levels.