AMD’s new 3D V-Cache CPUs are hella quick but there’s no clear pick for gamers-
AMD has wheeled out its latest gaming CPUs at CES in Las Vegas and they’re both better and worse than we’d hoped for. The big news is that AMD has applied its 3D V-Cache tech to the Ryzen 7000 series. And this time it’s not just one chip, but a trio of CPUs.
Last time around it was the sole Ryzen 7 5800X3D that got the game-accelerating 3D V-Cache treatment. For Ryzen 7000, there are three CPUs, extending all the way to 16 cores.
Just as a quick reminder, the whole 3D V-Cache thing is about using 3D packaging to stack extra memory on top of CPUs. Games in particular benefit from additional cache memory, reducing traffic over the CPU’s memory bus and boosting frame rates.
Anyway, for the new 3D V-Cache versions of the latest Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, the fun kicks off with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It’s a direct replacement for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the chip many thought would be the sole V-Cache offering from the Ryzen 7000 series. It retains eight CPU cores, though obv…
After a week-long race, Team Liquid secures world’s first completion of WoW’s Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible raid-
Esports organization Team Liquid has secured a coveted world’s first completion of World of Warcraft’s latest raid, Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. Liquid came out on top over rivals Echo and Method, and as reported by Dot Esports, the team has ended a three-year drought since their last world’s first completion, Shadowlands’ Castle Nathria.
The race to be the first team to clear a new WoW raid is a vaunted tradition, with it taking days or even weeks for professional esports teams to master complicated new encounter mechanics. Team sizes vary from raid to raid, but Liquid came into Aberrus with a 20-person roster including 13 DPS players, five healers, and two tanks.
The race for Aberrus began last Tuesday, and the teams were tasked with clearing all nine bosses of Dragonflight’s second raid on Mythic difficulty. Liquid started putting up an impressive showing from the halfway point, being the first to beat the last five of those bosses. It’s now left to Echo and Method…
PSA- You can trade with lots of Baldur’s Gate 3 NPCs who aren’t traders-
Here’s a thing about Baldur’s Gate 3 you might not know if you haven’t played previous Larian games. On the left-hand side of the dialogue screen there’s a row of icons, shortcuts that let you read back over the conversation, attack whoever you’re talking to, or switch to another character who isn’t in the conversation so they can get into position to attack whoever you’re talking to. (Or pinch all the stuff behind them while they’re distracted by whoever’s doing the talking.) Sometimes, one of those icons is “trade”.
Even NPCs who aren’t flagged on the map as merchants and don’t have a dialogue option like “show me your wares” can be traded with if this icon’s active. A random druid in the Emerald Grove will just be carrying around a potion of healing, some mugwort, a book about vampires, and one carrot, all of which she’ll happily sell you. Nearby, Rolan the tiefling has a scroll of detect thoughts should you need one.
You can even buy items right off …
Old School RuneScape players revolt after new big money owners say bots are fine, actually, devs furiously walk it back and say they banned 7 million bots last year-
Old School RuneScape developer Jagex is trying to quell player discontent after a strongly negative reaction to comments about the proliferation of bot accounts seemingly made by the company’s new owner: CVC Capital Partners.
CVC bought Jagex earlier this month for £900 million, a splashy acquisition that, naturally, caught the eye of the Financial Times. A source close to CVC told the paper that “bots are part of the RuneScape ecosystem, they just are,” and went on to say that the goal was “a sort of equilibrium of players and bots” in the game. “If a player is sufficiently committed to pay for three accounts, and have an account and two bots as part of its ecosystem, then so be it,” said the FT’s source.
Players took that as an indication that—so far as CVC was concerned—bots were going to be left to get on with it so long as their owners were paying. As is the case in pretty much any MMO, bots are a persistent problem in OSRS, with automated ac…
The artwork for this Japanese-inspired TTRPG gives me shivers-
How timely it is that, just days after the last Super Blue Moon, a second sneak peak at the Project: Blue Moon TTRPG should arise. This upcoming tabletop game by R. Talsorian games—makers of the Cyperpunk RED TTRPG—comes from Cody Pondsmith, whose mind birthed The Witcher TTRPG.
Just to be clear, Project: Blue Moon isn’t the final name for the game. It’s just a working title, but where Ponsmith neglects it’s name, he sure as heck makes up for it in atmosphere. Prepare yourself for a dangerous, Japanese-themed world full of dragon spirits and ever-churning death machines.
The first Blue Moon TTRPG sneak peak (via Dicebreaker) showed off some ethereal, east-Asian inspired artwork featuring a great Torii gate and lanterns. Behind it, trees of blood red surround an orb-like fire pit, a shrine perhaps, standing ominously at the top of a grand stairway. With the moon shining bright above the scene, it certainly sets a mood—a touch of m…
The 2023 Steam Winter Sale delivers the first-ever discount on Baldur’s Gate 3-
The big year-ender is here, as the 2023 Steam Winter Sale is now underway. And you know what that means: Deep discounts on thousands of games, free stickers, and the start of voting for the 2023 Steam Awards.
To get you off to a good start, be sure to dive into our roundup of recommended reductions, but first things first: Baldur’s Gate 3 is on sale for the first time ever, and I reckon that’s not a bad place to start. It’s not a huge discount, just 10% which drops the price to $54/£45/€54, but hey, it’s cheaper than it was. (And in case you somehow missed it, it’s a great game.)
A few others that I think are definitely worth your time:
- Jusant – $20/£18/€20 (20% off)
- System Shock – $26/£23/€26 (35% off)
- Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew – $32/£28/€32 (20% off)
- Chants of Sennaar – $16/£14/€16 (20% off)
- A…
The fantasy sequel to Fights in Tight Spaces is just called Knights in Tight Spaces, and it has a demo out now-
Get ready for some close-up card-driven brawling, because battler Fights in Tight Spaces has a sequel-spinoff coming: Knights in Tight Spaces, a fantasy themed throwdown that’ll have you take a party of ruffians engaging in a tactical brawl against not just action movie mooks like the first game, but skeletons and wizards and rock monsters.
It’s just as stylized as the first game was, though definitely refined into something even prettier than before, with a hybrid kind of lined and woodcut print looking aesthetic that’s much easier to read than the prior game’s black-and-red-on-white.
“Knights in Tight Spaces is a tactical deckbuilding game in the same universe as Fights in Tight Spaces, the successful game by Ground Shatter. It is a standalone title that sends us back to medieval times, building on the much-loved gameplay in new and dynamic ways,” says the developer.
The first game was notable for its use of tight terrain maps over the deckbuilding layer, forcing…
There’s a proper, official Dungeons & Dragons live stage show now-
The latest peak in the cultural zeitgeist surrounding Dungeons & Dragons has come, and it’s the announcement of a proper live stage show based on the game. Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern will debut in New York City at Stage 42 this May as the first fixed-location multi-show official Dungeons & Dragons stage play that I’ve heard of, perhaps the first ever.
The show looks like something of a mix of live-play style D&D storytelling, improv comedy, and a bit of audience participation to round it out. It stars three fixed actors, but the show aims to include the audience as a “fourth player.” The audience will be able to vote, using an browser-based app, on decisions like what paths or approaches the stage players take. There will also be, apparently, on-stage minigames such as fantasy beer pong.
It will be, at the very least, a fascinating experiment.
The Twenty-Sided Tavern is run by Curious Hedgehog, a group made up of David Carpenter, Sa…
Larian CEO’s advice about origin characters has thrown my Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough plans into disarray-
From my very first hands-off preview of Baldur’s Gate 3, I knew I was going to pick Astarion for my first playthrough. Like Divinity: Original Sin 2, Baldur’s Gate 3 not only lets you design a custom character, it also gives you a selection of origin characters with predefined histories and unique hooks, who otherwise serve as companions. It’s one of the things I adored about Original Sin 2, and a system I was eager to see return.
Astarion caught my eye because he’s a sexy vampire spawn with quick wits, sharp fangs and a compulsion to drink the blood of his pals. Tragedy, sarcasm, blood—what more does one need? I also hoped this would allow me to sidestep the hours spent in the character creator. No more agonising decisions for me! But now Larian CEO Swen Vincke has thrown a spanner in the works and I’m second guessing myself.
Vincke was chatting to the lads on Dropped Frames about origin characters, you see, and he had some advice for players: “We add …
Unfortunate- You can now completely ruin every single cutscene in Baldur’s Gate 3 with a Thomas the Tank Engine headcrab-
Mods are one of my favourite things about PC gaming, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is no different. Give players even the slightest bit of access to your code, and they’ll create whole new games, stunning graphical overhauls, and community patches to squash bugs. Then there’s also the horrors.
The latest lovecraftian nightmare to pull into the station is this mod, named Thomas the Tank Engine. That’s it, just. Thomas the Tank Engine. No embellishments, no attempt at arcane lore, it is what you get. Don’t worry, he’s here. Nothing can hurt you anymore.
The way Nexus Mod user RemuFO4’s nightmare works is pretty simple. It replaces one of the Tiefling’s horns with a mesh of Thomas the Tank Engine’s whole body, just… glued on to the model. Like a Half-Life headcrab, this parasitic train pilots Tav’s body as it searches for a place to make its new nest.
I cannot imagine enduring a 100 plus hour playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 with this godforsaken beast sta…
Take-Two CEO says he’s ‘highly confident’ GTA6 will make its release window, gets all philosophical about it- ‘Perfection is indeed hard to measure, it really is more subjective than objective’-
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has been on the business interview circuit since last week’s financial results, reassuring all those skittish stockholders after the company announced “a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of Calendar 2025 to Fall of Calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto 6.”
That wasn’t a delay: the game had previously been announced only for “calendar 2025”, and I don’t think even the most Rockstar-pilled conspiracist thought that meant January. But it did nevertheless confirm GTA 6 would be coming later rather than sooner: and let’s not forget, that’s a console release date only. Even 2026 for PC seems optimistic at this point.
So Strauss Zelnick is out there calming some nerves. During an interview with CNBC (spotted by VGC) Zelnick was asked about the decisions around release schedules, and what feeds into knowing when a game is ready.
“There are elements that you can actually measure,” says Zelnick. …
Wordle today- Hint and answer #892 for Tuesday, November 28-
Make every game of Wordle a winner with our help. Just keep on scrolling and you’ll soon run into our fantastic range of hints and tips for the internet’s favourite daily word game, as well as a clue written just for today’s puzzle. And of course, the answer to the November 28 (892) Wordle is just a click away too.
Today’s game was a quick and easy one for me: I only had two letters left to put in place before I was even halfway down the board, and I found those on my first attempt. Don’t worry if Wordle doesn’t flow quite as smoothly for you this Tuesday morning—that’s what I’m here for.
Today’s Wordle hint
Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, November 28
A lengthy study might begin by outlining the _____ of the project, making readers aware of the extent of its research and coverage. Someone might _____ out a room, looking around for someone or something. Equipment used to look at other objects in detail, such as distant stars, might use…
WoW’s new specialisation turns death knights into 13 million DPS boss scourges, as long as you bring 22 of them along-
Blizzard’s new specialisation, the augmentation evoker, has continued to stir up the game’s meta in weird and interesting ways. It acts as a support DPS, with most of its damage coming from buffs to its allies—a completely new playstyle for an MMO approaching its 20th birthday.
It’s super powerful—nearly a must-have for high-level content. Yet it’s been causing spats in lower-level groups due to DPS meter weirdness and the inevitable baggage of a pick-up-group community used to their personal performance being priority number one.
This bumpy introduction continues with a zany experiment documented by WoWhead. Guide writer, evoker specialist, and streamer Jereico has been cooking up a hotfix-causing strat, bringing two death knights into a raid with 22 augmentation evoker cheerleaders to help them melt face. It’s not even an exploit, technically—just a fatal flaw in how the classes are designed.
In their full breakdown of the strat, WoWHead’s Squis…
Wild Hearts devs acknowledge the PC port runs terribly and promise fix next week-
Wild Hearts is Koei-Tecmo’s new attempt to get in on that sweet monster hunting action and, while it’s not perfect, there’s lots to like. PCG’s Wes Fenlon mostly enjoyed his time with the game, but a dearth of monsters and terrible issues with performance saw the game limp off with a 63% score.
I’ve been playing Wild Hearts and, yep, this thing runs badly and suffers from constant frame drops and stuttering. It’s a sentiment shared by the wider community, with the game’s Steam reviews currently sitting at mostly negative and summed up by this devastating one-liner from Katsummie: “The price is higher than the FPS you will be able to pull in this game.”
The development team, Omega Force, has now acknowledged that the PC version is not in a good state, and claims it has identified the problem and a fix is due imminently:
“Omega Force are working continuously to improve performance and optimise the game for a wide variety of hardware specs across …
Wordle hint and answer #662- Wednesday, April 12-
A clue for today’s Wordle is waiting just below, alongside a wide range of tips, guides, and our archive, all designed to help make the April 12 (662) and every other Wordle just that little bit easier, and if you just need to secure that win, you’ll find the answer only a quick click or scroll away.
I didn’t so much solve Wordle today as much as make a desperate guess using the only letters I had left to try, and even then, I wasn’t sure it would work. Luckily for me, it turned out fine in the end, but I’m hoping for a Wordle answer that’s a little less “exciting” in the near future.
Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Wednesday, April 12
Today’s word is the name of a white crystalline salt with a wide variety of uses, including washing powder, soap, and enamel glazes. This substance is also known as sodium borate, and one of today’s three consonants is a letter you’d normally avoid.
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Is there a double letter in today’…
Assassin’s Creed Mirage showcases ‘full Arabic voiceover’ in a new trailer at Gamescom-
In an all-new trailer revealed today at Gamescom, Ubisoft gave us our first look—or, more accurately, our first listen—at the “full Arabic voiceover” that will be available in all editions of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Ubisoft actually announced that Mirage, which is set in 9th century Baghdad, will have an Arabic dub in September 2022, but this (as far as I know) is the first time we’ve heard it in action. It’s not unprecedented—Assassin’s Creed 2, for instance, features an Italian dub, and Assassin’s Creed Unity can be played in French—but even so, it’s great to see Ubisoft carrying on the tradition.
I can’t speak to the quality of the Arabic translation but I can say that playing a game in the language of its setting—with subtitles, of course—can really be worth the effort for non-speakers, particularly in games with a strong focus on narrative. Playing the Metro games in Russian, for instance, really deepens the experien…