PC Gaming

Built-in benchmark tools and AMD FSR 2 support are among the PC version's features.

Robocop: Rogue City is part man, part machine, and all videogame. It's also delayed, as it turns out, from a planned release in September to November 2, 2023.

The November date was revealed in the description for the latest trailer for the game, which blends a cinematic look at the ever-crumbling Old Detroit with gameplay footage showcasing "detective work and gory shootouts." Publisher Nacon didn't provide any explanation for the delay, and in fact the Steam page still indicates that Robocop: Rogue City will launch in September, but this isn't the first time it's been pushed back: It was originally supposed to be out sometime in June, but got bumped into September earlier this year.

We had high hopes (or at least cautious optimism) for Robocop: Rogue City back in 2022, fueled largely by nostalgia for Paul Verhoeven's brilliant 1987 film about the future of law enforcement, but a closer look at the game in June left me cold.

Intel Arc A750 vs. GeForce RTX 4060, 40+ Game Benchmark @ 1080p & 1440p

tl;dr

The reduced price (~200-220$ USD) and improved drivers have made this a decent value on the low end). It generally lags behind the 4060 and the 7600 at 1080p but is often about the same at 1440p. THere were a few games where it pulled ahead of the 4060 and 7600 (eg. RE4 max settings with RT).

There's also some games where it's performance is just broken TLoU and Hogwarts Legacy RT.

Sea Of Stars is a beautifully made retro-inspired RPG that will instantly transport you back to the 16-bit golden years.

Many attempts have been made to recapture the JRPG's glory days. In Tokyo RPG Factory, Square Enix founded a whole studio dedicated to the craft, and more recently Squeenix's "HD-2D" style has come to define both their own retro work and that of others. But it's arguably the RPGs from outside Japan that have been doing a better job of propping up the SNES nostalgia tent. Last year's Jack Move and Chained Echoes were both infinitely more refreshing to me than the slightly tired Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler sequels, for example, and now we have The Messenger studio's latest, Sea Of Stars, which is probably one of the few Japanese-inspired RPGs I've played in the last decade that's even come close to bottling the mighty Chrono Trigger and lived to tell the tale. If you're the sort to cry, 'They just don't make 'em like they used to anymore', well, you can dry your tears, because Sea Of Stars is the one that is.

Wayfinder has plenty of potential, but it's stretching the 'early access' label a little too far with this very, very rocky launch.

This is our full-length interview with Jason Christensen of AMD's Device Analysis Lab in Austin, TX. We aired parts of this for our documentary previously, but due to popular demand from viewers who wanted to see Jason's full tour, we've cut together an extended version! This video walks through the destructive analysis tools, non-destructive analysis tools, and some of the technology behind how AMD designs and iterates on its CPUs. Jason shares technical details on how it all works.

NVIDIA has published its DLSS 3.5 SDK, paving the way for the next generation of Super Sampling enhancements within games and applications.

A few hours ago, I was tipped by one of our readers that NVIDIA has added the first DLSS 3.5 and Ray Reconstruction libraries over at its public GitHub domain. So we checked them out and as of just 14 hours (at the time of posting this article), the DLSS Super Sampling SDK 3.5.0 and required docs are indeed available. The libraries include multiple DLLs for Windows and Linux platforms & these DLLs can be easily swapped with the existing DLSS 3.1 using the DLSS Swapper tool made by Beeradmoore aka Brad.

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The release comes a day after AMD unveiled its FSR 3 technology which also features interpolation and frame generation capability. But the thing that makes DLSS 3.5 fundamentally different from AMD's FSR 3 is that DLSS 3.5 is an extension of DLSS 3 which already introduced the two elements, frame generation and frame interpolation. The technology has already gotten better with its DLSS 3.1 revision and DLSS 3.5 aims to further enhance the ray tracing capabilities through a new tech called Ray Reconstruction.

On a technical level, AMD's FSR 3 would be the competitor to DLSS 3/3.1, not DLSS 3.5 which is far more advanced in the things it's made to achieve. DLSS 3 itself has a far bigger adoption rate than DLSS 2 and is already featured in a range of titles whereas AMD has so far only promised two AAA title support for 2023 (Fall) and at least 10 more titles coming in 2024. AMD did announce that its HYPR-RX technology will enable fluid motion frame enablement across DX11/DX12 games but that will only be limited to Radeon RX 7000 GPUs and utilizes RSR over FSR which may have a slight bit of an impact on the visual quality of the game.

Now, after actually playing 30 minutes of Black Myth at gamescom 2023, I’m thrilled to report that seeing really can be believing. It genuinely does feel as good as it looks.

First, let’s address where Black Myth: Wukong sits along the action RPG spectrum. While it definitely falls under the soulslike umbrella thanks to its punishing centre-piece boss fights and bonfire-like checkpointing, Black Myth isn’t directly comparable to any FromSoft game. It sits somewhere between Sekiro and Bloodborne; it has the relentless speed of the former and emphasises evasive dodging much like the latter. But while the combat encounters pull on some of the same strings as the genre’s established titans, the actual act of fighting feels like its own slick beast.

Much of that comes down to the aforementioned evasions. Your staff-swinging monkey protagonist, based on Sun Wukong of China’s classic Journey to the West story, cannot block incoming attacks. Instead, dodges and leaps are your primary method of avoiding damage. This creates an incredibly kinetic foundation for the combat system, one in which you are constantly running circles around foes. While the lack of a traditional block means there’s not the satisfaction of a perfect parry, the feeling of dashing just before an enemy lands a blow is just as sweet.

(Ukrainian) retailer, Telemart, has listed Intel's 14th Gen Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K & Core i5-14600K CPUs on its online site.

Spotted by Momomo_US, the retailer has listed down the Intel 14th Gen Unlocked CPU lineup which includes the Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, Core i5-14600K & their "KF" brethren. The processors aren't yet listed with any pricing but that could change in the coming month as the lineup is anticipated to be unveiled at the Innovation event in September.

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Intel Core i9-14900K CPU Specifications

Starting with the flagship, we have the Intel Core i9-14900K CPU which will feature 16 cores & 32 threads in an 8+16 configuration. The CPU will feature up to 36 MB of Smart Cache and a base TDP of 125W (253W PL2). It will feature clock speeds of 3.2 GHz at base and up to 6.0 GHz with a Thermal Velocity Boost. These frequencies are currently for the pre-QS stage so we might see the rumored 6.2 GHz on either this chip or a "KS" variant later down the road. Regardless, this will be a +200 MHz frequency jump over the Core i9-13900K and the same as the Core i9-13900KS.

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So just as a recap, here's everything we can expect from Intel's 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh Desktop CPUs:

• Same Architecture as Raptor Lake (Raptor Cove P-Cores + Gracemont E-Cores)
• Same Process Node as Raptor Lake (Intel 7 aka 10nm++)
• Higher Clock Speeds Beyond 6.0 GHz
• Support For Faster DDR5 Memory DIMMs
• Much Higher Power Consumption (Close To 300W)
• Compatibility With Existing LGA 1700 / 1800 Socket Motherboards

The Intel Raptor Lake-S Refresh Desktop CPU lineup will be supported on the existing LGA 1700 socketed motherboards within the 600 and 700-series lineup and will launch in October 2023. The latest leaks point out a 3% average performance improvement besides the Core i7 SKU which will offer up to 17% faster multi-threaded uplift thanks to a core spec bump.

AMD just announced its RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT GPUs at Gamescom 2023. This video covers the specifications that AMD announced, alongside some of its first-party performance claims. AMD additionally discussed FSR3 in its Gamescom news announcement, with some talk of which games will support it initially. Bethesda's Starfield is also a current "AMD Exclusive" launch partner, so we're expecting more news on this front as Bethesda's launch approaches. Otherwise, most of the news is focused on specs, pricing, and release date.

Dome-King Cabbage is a visual novel set in the world of a monster-collecting RPG, and we were over the moon to debut a magnificent trailer revealing that it’s coming soon to PC and Nintendo Switch.

Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has certainly wowed in trailers so far, although most of the footage we’ve seen so far has been running on PS5. What will the game look like running on a powerful PC? Wonder no longer, because Ubisoft has just released an impressive-looking Avatar PC features trailer.

Massive is offering Avatar players a hearty selection of PC features, including ray-traced reflections and shadows. That ray tracing can be fine-tuned to an usually detailed degree, with Avatar’s in-depth graphics menu allowing you to really tinker with the specifics of the game’s shadows and reflections. Players can also look forward to support for ultrawide and multi-monitor setups, and surprise surprise, the game will have both FSR 2 and DLSS at launch. You can check out the trailer for yourself, below.

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YouTube Trailer Link

AMD today at Gamescom unveiled the Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT performance-segment graphics cards. Designed for maxed out gaming at 1440p with ray tracing, the two are designed to square off against NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 series, offering competitive performance and pricing. The two are based on AMD's latest RDNA3 graphics architecture, and use the 5 nm foundry process where it matters. Both cards claim to offer not just superior performance to the specific NVIDIA RTX 40-series SKUs they're designed to compete with, but also better future-proofing, with more video memory on offer.

At the heart of the two is the new "Navi 32" GPU, AMD's second largest chip from this generation. It is a chiplet GPU, just like the "Navi 31" that powers the RX 7900 series, albeit slightly scaled down. The graphics compute die (GCD), the die with the main graphics rendering and compute machinery, is built on the 5 nm EUV foundry node. It is flanked by four memory cache dies (MCDs), each built on the 6 nm foundry node. These are the same MCDs found in the "Navi 31," but four in number instead of six, which gives the "Navi 32" a 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface.

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The reason AMD chose the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB for comparisons, is because it intends to price the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT competitively to them. The Radeon RX 7800 XT is priced at USD $499, while the RX 7700 XT is priced at $449. Both cards go on sale from September 6, 2023.

Following Nvidia's DLSS 3.5 announcements at Gamescom, AMD has finally revealed FSR 3 - along with a separate frame generation solution that works on all DX11 and DX12 titles. In a meeting with AMD, Digital Foundry saw both technologies in action and came away impressed.

FSR 3 is a frame generation solution that operates along similar lines to Nvidia's DLSS 3 - combining frame generation (Fluid Motion Frames) with super resolution upscaling (FSR 2) and latency reduction (Anti-Lag+) in a small number of supported games, with Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum set to first debut the technology. FSR 3 will work on Radeon graphics cards, as well as Nvidia and Intel GPUs.

So, how does FSR 3 look? At Gamescom, we had a demonstration of both titles running with the new technology active on a Radeon 7900 XTX running at 4K output. Both were running with v-sync on, which AMD recommends for frame-pacing purposes. In the very small Forspoken demo we saw, the game was running locked at 120 frames per second and looked just as a v-synced 120fps should look. The game was running in FSR 2 quality mode providing its own frame-rate boost, with frame-gen then taking you up to the limit. In terms of fluidity and clarity, FSR 3 looked a match for DLSS 3 - a view shared by Alex, Rich and John, who were all present to see the demos in person. A great start for FSR 3.

Patch #1 is now live for Baldur's Gate 3, addressing over 1000 bugs, glitches, and blockers.

A new action game based on the concept of the ARMORED CORE series that uses the knowledge gained from FromSoftware's recent action game development.

AMD's New $180 Zen 4 CPU, Ryzen 5 7500F vs. Core i5 13400F: Gaming Benchmark

"on average (in the 1080p test) the 7500f delivered 12% more performance with its biggest win coming the way of Fortnite followed by Call of Duty and then F1 23 so all the titles that saw really big frame rates. meanwhile there was just a single example where the 7500f was slower and that was seen when testing the Riftbreaker"

"performance per watt we see that the 7500f is actually the more efficient gaming processor though only by a very small margin we're talking three percent based on this data"

As part of NVIDIA and Microsoft's collaboration to bring more choice to gamers, new Microsoft Store integration has been added to GeForce NOW that lets gamers stream select titles from the Xbox PC Game Pass catalog on GeForce NOW, starting today. With the Microsoft Store integration, members will see a brand-new Xbox button on supported PC games and can seamlessly launch these titles across their devices, provided they either purchased the standalone games through the Microsoft Store or have an active Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass subscription.

Hot off our recent Gamescom announcement, four blockbuster titles are coming to GeForce NOW this fall: Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion, Party Animals and PAYDAY 3. Plus, head to the cloud and stream the 25 new titles joining the cloud this week, including DOOM 2016 from Bethesda.

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Catch the full list of games joining the cloud this week:

WrestleQuest (New release on Steam, Aug. 21)
Jumplight Odyssey (New release on Steam, Aug. 21)
Blasphemous 2 (New release on Steam, Aug. 24)
RIDE 5 (New release on Steam, Aug. 24)
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Xbox)
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (Xbox)
Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition (Xbox)
Crusader Kings III (Xbox)
Dead Cells (Xbox)
Deathloop (Xbox)
Doom 2016 (Steam)
Gears 5 (Xbox)
Grounded (Xbox)
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (Xbox)
No Man's Sky (Xbox)
Pentiment (Xbox)
Quake (Xbox)
Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut (Xbox)
Stellaris (Xbox)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Xbox)
Trackmania (Steam)
Valheim (Xbox)
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Xbox)
Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Xbox)
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Xbox)

Meet a secret society of robotic aliens in update 4.4, ECHOES! Furthering the narrative introduced in INTERCEPTOR, explore the mysteries of the Autophage, perform their rituals, learn their language, and assemble your own ceremonial staff. In deep space, confront huge outlaw dreadnoughts, sweep through their trenches and destroy vulnerable components in new tactical space combat – and much more!

Epic First Run is a new program that aims to attract new releases from smaller developers and publishers.

Over the last year, Xbox has been under one massive spotlight: a giant acquisition and court case, questions about its upcoming AAA portfolio, Starfield on the horizon, Game Pass, and so much more. At gamescom 2023, we were finally able to get some answers from Xbox head Phil Spencer about almost everything.

I'm on the market for a new monitor. Mine is a very old Asus that is a 1080p/60hz monitor.

A few days ago I used to be the occasional competitive player (just playing with friends) and while I might play a competitive game or two again, I'm wondering if I should buy the BenQ Zowie 2546K. Where I'm looking (local market), it's currently the lowest price it's ever been.

But my hesitation lies on the fact that I might have more use for a 4k/140hz monitor.

I guess I'm mostly looking for personal recommendations.

Existing in the intersection of puzzle game, platformer and level editor, It’s A Wrap! casts you as the director of a low-budget, probably bad Hollywood flick that’s surely about to be sued for workplace injury claims. Essentially, you rejig platforms and background props and obstacles in the level (as the director) and then you zoom in for some dangerous side-scrolling goodness (as the actor). Oh, and did I mention that it’s out now? Shadow-drop!