Remedy Entertainment has revealed that patch 1.0.16.1—for Alan Wake 2—will optimize graphics card performance on older architectures. Digital Foundry's Video Producer, Alex Battaglia, previewed these improvements earlier in the week—he noted that Remedy's Northlight Engine-powered 2023 visual masterpiece was: "one of the most demanding for older hardware. Owing to its use of DX12 Ultimate mesh shaders, the game could run on older hardware but often delivered an unplayable experience, especially on Nvidia's GTX 10-series GPUs built on the Pascal architecture." That generation's lack of mesh shader support is observed as its main "undoing in Alan Wake 2," where a substantial portion of visual delivery is reliant on said technologies. Battaglia observed that: "the game does function on GPUs that don't support mesh shaders, but poor performance and visual errors are the problem: the GTX 1060 at 1080p on FSR 2 quality mode, married up with PS5's performance mode quality presets delivers a game typically running under 60 FPS, more usually hitting circa 15 FPS. Game frame-rate is so low, even game speed and audio playback are compromised."

Today, Remedy's Alan Wake social media account announced the release of the game's latest update: "We've been optimizing the PC version of Alan Wake 2, and as a result the minimum PC system requirements have been lowered. Please check the updated image (below)! These changes take effect with update 1.0.16.1, out on PC now." Certain owners of Team Green Pascal-era hardware, as well as Team Red RDNA 1.0/Navi 10 preservationists will be pleased to find out that Alan Wake 2's minimum specification tier now accommodates NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 and AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics cards. Digital Foundry's preview piece did mention incremental improvements for Vega-based GPUs, albeit with optimizations introduced within earlier Alan Wake 2 patches.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced the PlayStation 5 console (PS5) has surpassed 50 million units sold through to consumers, three years since its Nov. 2020 launch. Thanks to the support of PlayStation fans globally, the PS5 console has experienced strong momentum this year, driven by a slate of highly popular games and SIE's continued focus on bringing innovation to the gaming experience, including PS5 game streaming for PlayStation Plus Premium members.

"Achieving this PS5 sales milestone is a testament to the unwavering support of the global PlayStation community and their passion for the incredible experiences created by the talented developers from PlayStation Studios and our partners," said Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. "We're grateful for all of our players who have joined the PS5 journey so far, and we're thrilled that this is the first holiday season since launch that we have a full supply of PS5 consoles—so anyone who wants to get one can get one."

We want you to have the happiest of holidays for 2023, so we've put together the most festive sale. It has thousands of discounted games, limitless 33% Epic Coupons, an Epic Rewards boost to 10%, 17 free games, and free cosmetics for everyone. The event runs from today (Dec. 13, 2023) 11 AM ET (4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET), to Jan. 10, 2024 11 AM ET (4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET) Read about the highlights below!

Thousands of titles on sale, limitless 33% Epic Coupons, and an Epic Rewards boost to 10%!
In addition to the thousands of discounted titles, from today (Dec. 13, 2023) 11 AM ET (4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET), to Jan. 10, 2024 11 AM ET (4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET), any eligible transactions at, above, or adding up to $14.99 or higher will have a 33% Epic Coupon automatically applied at checkout (see Terms and Conditions). The Epic Coupon is limitless, so you'll receive one following each eligible transaction completed for the duration of the event. We'll also be boosting our Epic Rewards program to 10% for the duration of Holiday Sale.

NVIDIA today announced the important milestone of 500 games and apps that take advantage of NVIDIA RTX, the transformative set of gaming graphics technologies, that among many other things, mainstreamed real-time ray tracing in the consumer gaming space, and debuted the most profound gaming technology of recent times—DLSS, or performance uplifts through high-quality upscaling technologies. The company got to this milestone over a 5-year period, with RTX seeing the light of the day in August 2018. NVIDIA RTX is the combined feature-set of real time ray tracing, including NVIDIA-specific enhancements; and DLSS.

Although it started out as an upscaling-based performance enhancement that leverages AI, DLSS encompasses a whole suite of technologies aimed at enhancing performance at minimal quality loss, and in some cases even enhances the image quality over native resolution. This includes super resolution, or the classic DLSS and DLSS 2 feature set; DLSS 3 Frame Generation, which nearly doubles frame-rates by generating entire alternate frames entirely using AI, without involving the graphics rendering machinery; and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, which attempts to vastly improve the fidelity of ray traced elements in upscaled scenarios.

Welcome to Epic Games Store's Black Friday Event 2023! Why launch it on a Tuesday? With the return of the Epic Coupon, delivering 33% off of eligible transactions, and a boost to 10% Epic Rewards, we couldn't wait until Friday to tell you! Save on a range of top games!

From Nov. 21, 2023 at 11 AM ET / 4 PM GMT / 5PM CET until Nov. 28, 11 AM ET / 4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET, any eligible transactions (see the Terms and Conditions), or shopping carts of $14.99 or over will have a 33% discount applied at checkout. And the coupon is limitless, so you'll receive one following each eligible transaction completed for the duration of the event. We'll also be boosting our Epic Rewards program to 10% for the duration of the event. We've crafted a Black Friday Buyer's Guide to help you out. We've gathered some highlights below, listing great titles new and old, but it's just a taste of the range of games that you can buy this Black Friday. Enjoy!

Intel Graphics has released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, version 101.4953 WHQL. This one comes with a several fixes for Starfield, Alan Wake 2, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and World War Z games. Intel fixed flickering color corruption in the sky during night scenes in Starfield, corruption issues on water and reflective surfaces in Alan Wake 2, lower performance in the Xbox Game Pass version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and lower performance in the Epic Games Store version of World War Z.

Intel did not fix all of the issues as Starfield is still having trouble with Dynamic Resolution Scaling, which can be fixed by using the Render Resolution Scale slider. Intel also lists known issues with Ghostrunner 2, Total War: Pharaoh, and Dead by Daylight games, as well as errors with some models for video enhancement in Topaz Video AI.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4953 WHQL

AMD has released the latest version of the Adrenalin software, version 23.11.1 WHQL. The new AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 23.11.1 WHQL drivers add support for upcoming games, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, The Invincible, and JX3 Ultimate, and add Radeon Boost support for Alan Wake 2. The new drivers also add improvements and optimizations for Stable Diffusion, Adobe Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve, UL Procyon AI workloads on Radeon RX 600M, 700M, 6000, and 7000 series graphics cards.

In addition to new games support and optimizations, it also fixes several issues, including a fix for Performance Metrics Overlay FPS reporting in various games, performance issues with Radeon RX 7600 in Counter Strike 2, flickering issues in Total War: Pharaoh and Alan Wake, issues with rebuilding shader cache in Baldur Gate 3 on Vulkan API and Forza Motorsport, fix for driver crash in Forza Motorsport, and a fix for an intermittent black screen or code 31 error on some graphics cards, including the Radeon RX 6700 XT.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.11.1 WHQL

This week, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Jusant, RIPOUT, RoboCop: Rogue City, and The Talos Principle 2 all launch with day-one support for DLSS 3, giving GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers the fastest frame rates possible at the highest settings and resolutions.

Additionally, RIPOUT just entered Early Access with DLSS 3, Desynced is adding support for DLSS 3 in the near future, EA SPORTS WRC launches this week with DLSS 2, and NVIDIA Omniverse has just added support for DLSS 3.5 and Ray Reconstruction. This bumper selection of anticipated releases follow last week's launch of Alan Wake 2, featuring full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, Ray Reconstruction, and NVIDIA Reflex.

The cloud is full of treats this GFN Thursday with Cities: Skylines II now streaming, leading 15 newly supported games this week. The game's publisher, Paradox Interactive, is offering GeForce NOW one-month Priority memberships for those who pick up the game first, so make sure to grab one before they're gone. Among the newly supported additions to the GeForce NOW library are more games from the PC Game Pass catalog, including Ghostwire Tokyo, State of Decay and the Dishonored series. Members can also look forward to Alan Wake 2 - streaming soon.

Cloud City
Members can build the metropolis of their dreams this week in Cities: Skylines II, the sequel to Paradox Interactive's award-winning city sim. Raise a city from the ground up and transform it into a thriving urban landscape. Get creative to build on an unprecedented scale while managing a deep simulation and a living economy. The game's AI and intricate economics mean every choice ripples through the fabric of a player's city, so they'll have to stay sharp - strategizing, solving problems and reacting to challenges. Build sky-high and sprawl across the map like never before. New dynamic map features affect how the city expands amid rising pollution, changing weather and seasonal challenges. Paradox is offering one-month GeForce NOW Priority memberships to the first 100,000 people who purchase the game, so budding city planners can optimize their gameplay across nearly any device. Visit Cities Skylines II for more info.

This week, Alan Wake 2 launches with incredible fully ray-traced graphics, accelerated and enhanced by NVIDIA DLSS 3.5's complete suite of AI-powered technologies. GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers will receive the definitive day-one experience: frame rates are multiplied by an average of 4.5X at 4K, ray tracing is even more immersive thanks to Ray Reconstruction, and Reflex makes gameplay even more responsive. Additionally, gamers can soon enable DLSS in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure, and Shadows of Doubt, two highly rated indie games.

These new DLSS integrations follow last week's DLSS launches, which saw NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, Slender: The Arrival, and Warhammer: Vermintide 2 introduce support for DLSS 3, and HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED 2 - Turbocharged and AirportSim release with DLSS 2.

Intel has released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, version 101.4900 Beta, which brings Game On Driver support on Intel Arc A-series Graphics for Alan Wake 2, Cities: Skylines 2, WRC, and Ghostrunner 2 games. New drivers do not fix any issues or bugs, so it will still have some issues in games like Starfield.

In terms of performance, and compared to the 101.4887 drivers, these will bring up to a 20 percent average performance uplift at 1080p and high settings and up to a 22 percent average performance increase at 1440p and medium settings in the upcoming Alan Wake 2 game which launches on October 27th. It also increases the average FPS by up to 34 percent at 1080p with high settings and up to 26 percent at 1440p with medium settings in Cities Skylines 2 (DX11), which launches today, October 24th.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4900 Beta