CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk development team expected to conclude work on 2077 around autumn of last year—following the release of their v2.0 Content Update, and Phantom Liberty DLC campaign expansion. Game director, Gabe Amatangelo, declared in a September 2023 interview with PC Gamer, that his team was ready to move onto the development of a sequel, but some members continued to deliver updates. December's upgrade to v2.1 added a functional metro transport system, while January's Patch 2.11 expanded vehicle customization options. Game File's Stephen Totilo interviewed Amatangelo during last month's DICE Summit—his recently published article included a discussion regarding CD Projekt RED's surprising extended support schedule for Cyberpunk 2077.

Amatangelo okayed the addition of a Night City Area Rapid Transit (NCART) system, after absorbing news coverage and fan feedback: "my team had a plan on how to accomplish it in a reasonable way, sort of in a timely way." Cyberpunk 2077's game director confirmed that work has finally concluded on his team's open world magnum opus: "Yes. We're done." The temptation does remain to tinker with the current game: "It's possible that there are some other little things that comes in here or there, just because, as you're kind of messing around with stuff, sometimes you discover something that is not a high risk. Or it's easy to integrate. Or, you know, some developers have some bandwidth...Then they bring it to me." Amatangelo indicates that he could approve further updates, but "Cyberpunk Part Deux" takes priority: "Well, I trust you that it isn't going to mess with your other work…So let's give it a go."

Logitech's G PRO X SUPERLIGHT 2 wireless gaming mouse arrived last September with an MSRP of $159—at the time, cutting-edge peripheral enthusiasts were expecting a mighty upgrade over the ultra popular 2020 iteration. TPU's resident mouse guru—pzogel—had a "hard time making a case for the Pro X Superlight 2," when comparing it to the preceding model. Additionally, the Superlight 2's closest rival—Razer's Viper V2 Pro when combined with their 4K HyperPolling Wireless Dongle—was deemed technologically superior. A November 2023 leak revealed that Logitech was readying an intriguing firmware update—the Superlight 2 was set to be upgraded with a 4 kHz report rate mode.

The launch specification of 2 kHz (maximum) was a disappointing aspect, considering that many cheaper alternatives had already rolled out with higher polling rates (via external dongles). Logitech's latest G HUB software update brings good news for PRO X Superlight 2 users: "we are excited to share a new firmware update for your mouse that will increase your report rate to 4 kHz for free. Once you update the firmware, you'll be able to access the higher report rate in G HUB using your existing wireless dongle. For more information, visit our YouTube channel for an update from Chris Pate." In TPU's late October review, pzogel noted that the 2000 Hz rate: "comes at a price, which is reduced battery life." We hope to see a revisit with the newly implemented 4000 Hz mode tested out.

Bethesda has released what appears to be the biggest beta update yet for the Starfield game, bringing new features and an extensive list of bug fixes for quests, graphics, gameplay, and more. The new Beta update, which is now available in Steam Beta, and should roll out as an official update at a later date, brings several new features, including a whole new photomode, scanner, FOV adjustments when using 3rd person ship view, anisotropic filtering quality slider, new autosave, updated ship UI, and more.

The most important inclusions, graphics-wise, include fixes for NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR, various flickering issues, various shadow quality and other performance improvements, as well as some gameplay and quest fixes that were previously noticed in the game.

We're thrilled to announce the addition of Crossplay, a highly anticipated feature in Remnant 2! Now, players can unite against the Root, irrespective of their chosen platform. Team up with friends or discover open games across platforms and embark on your journey together. Dev Note: For console players, Crossplay is set to on by default. This setting will affect your ability to see other games (including friend's games) within the game if their Crossplay setting is set to "off." If you can't see a friend's game in-game, then confirm that you have matching Crossplay settings. The "off" setting will prevent you from joining another game that have Crossplay enabled. Additional Dev Note: Settings on PC that use frame generation currently blocks the Epic Online Services Overlay, which is required for Crossplay functionality of joining friends in game. You can still accept invites using the Epic launcher prior to starting the game and join that way if you wish to use frame generation in game.

Aberration Domination Event
The Root have seized yet another opportunity to unleash a horde of menacing Aberrations across all worlds! From February 29th to March 5th, gear up and face this challenge head-on. Defeat these sinister foes and collect the elusive Corrupted Shards, a rare material with untold potential. Head over to the enigmatic Dwell in Ward 13, where you can trade these Corrupted Shards to craft corrupted versions of some NEW special weapons. Show the Root that even in the darkest of times, our resolve shines brighter than ever! Dev Note: This is our second big aberration event; we figured why not celebrate the addition of Crossplay with another Aberration event! We've added even more corrupted weapons to acquire, so group up and take on the Root!

FurMark's development team, Geeks3D, seems to be relieved after work was completed on version 2.1.0's public release—according to release notes: "It took me more time than expected but it's there!" The Beta version was made available back in December 2022 (through Geeks3D's Discord)—a milestone achievement for the Furmark dev team, since no major updates had been implemented since 2007. The GPU stress test and benchmarking tool was improved once again—last August, when the Beta was upgraded to v2.0.10.

Main author, JEGX, provided a little bit of background information: "FurMark 2 is built with GeeXLab. The GUI is a pure GeeXLab application while the furmark command line tool is built with the GeeXLab SDK. GeeXLab being cross-platform, this first version of FurMark 2 is available for Windows and Linux (the Linux 32-bit version is also available, I will re-compile it for the next update). I plan to release FurMark 2 for Raspberry Pi (I just received my Raspberry Pi 5 board!) and maybe for macOS too." He states that feedback is welcome, and requests for OpenGL 2.1 and 3.0/3.1 support will be considered. The full timeline of changelog updates can be found here.

Paradox Interactive and Triumph Studios have announced the release date for Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury, a new content pack coming on February 27, 2024 to the award-winning fantasy strategy game for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The studios also revealed the full list of features that will be included with Primal Fury, including a new Primal Culture themed around mastery of beasts and nature, new Tomes of Magic to wield the forces of mists and storms, new physical forms, mounts, and much more. Primal Fury will be available on all platforms for a suggested retail price of $9.99/£8.49/€9.99; players who purchased the Premium Edition of Age of Wonders 4 or the Expansion Pass will receive Primal Fury at launch for no additional cost.

In the Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury content pack, players will discover new ways to conquer the realms, and bring the land itself under their control. The new Primal Culture will enable rulers to channel an animal spirit that shapes their empire, both physically and spiritually. The Tome of Fey Mists and the Tome of the Stormborne, both added in Primal Fury, include new spells to conceal troops in magical fog, gain advantages over seas and shorelines, and even transform armies into fearsome nagas. The pack will also launch alongside the free Wolf Update, which will add new features and improvements requested by the Age of Wonders community, including a rework of necromancy, new randomly generated items, and War Bounties to better direct allies in conflicts.

Hi everyone, in January we shared with you all a status update on 3 key areas of feedback from the Forza Motorsport community that our team is working to improve—Car Progression, Forza Race Regulations and Drivatar AI. For Car Progression, today we began collecting feedback from various sources on changes that will give players freedom to equip the parts they need regardless of car level. We have additional changes to the system in various states of design and testing with plans to implement these changes as soon as possible. For Forza Race Regulations, we have enabled Race Marshals and some content creators the ability to flag in-game incidents for review to help feed changes to the adjudication model that will improve the system. Lastly, we're testing out fixes to the Drivatar AI to alleviate competitors bunching up around Turn 1 and causing the first few AI opponents to reach insurmountable leads. Beyond those key changes, we're investigating other priority fixes for the AI that improve their overall driving behavior and reduce how aggressively they stick to the racing line. These are just a few examples of where we are prioritizing work in these areas, and we will be sharing more on each soon.

While we have 3 distinct teams here at Turn 10 working on these key improvements, we're also actively developing fixes and improvements to other areas of the game. These will begin rolling out alongside Update 5 in February and will include a Skip Practice option to the Career mode pre-race menu to make it more discoverable, and a save point after finishing a Practice session so you can complete the Featured Race later. We're also developing fixes and quality-of-life improvements to the Livery Editor based on the reports you've shared with us, including custom advanced zoom for applying decals, the ability to paint upgraded brake calipers, and a prompt to save your design when exiting the Livery Editor. While this update is in active development, we wanted to share an earlier-than-usual look at some of the changes we're targeting for this release.

RTX Video HDR—first announced at CES—is now available for download through the January Studio Driver. It uses AI to transform standard dynamic range video playing in internet browsers into stunning high dynamic range (HDR) on HDR10 displays. PC game modders now have a powerful new set of tools to use with the release of the NVIDIA RTX Remix open beta. It features full ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, modern physically based rendering assets and generative AI texture tools so modders can remaster games more efficiently than ever. Pick up the new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER available from custom board partners in stock-clocked and factory-overclocked configurations to enhance creating, gaming and AI tasks.

Part of the RTX 40 SUPER Series announced at CES, it's equipped with more CUDA cores than the RTX 4070, a frame buffer increased to 16 GB, and a 256-bit bus—perfect for video editing and rendering large 3D scenes. It runs up to 1.6x faster than the RTX 3070 Ti and 2.5x faster with DLSS 3 in the most graphics-intensive games. And this week's featured In the NVIDIA Studio technical artist Vishal Ranga shares his vivid 3D scene Disowned—powered by NVIDIA RTX and Unreal Engine with DLSS.

After a deep investigation, our R&D department discovered that our new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G VENTUS 3X graphics card does not deliver its full potential. MSI sincerely acknowledges and apologizes for any inconvenience. With a paramount focus on enhancing user experience, we are unwaveringly committed to ensuring optimal graphics card performance and overall satisfaction for our esteemed customers.

To enjoy your new product at its maximum speed, we kindly invite you to update the new BIOS (95.03.45.40.F0) that is freshly fine-tuned by our team. This update will boost your graphics card performance, aiming to meet and exceed the expected benchmarks. Additionally, after a thorough examination, we also took this opportunity to upgrade other models within MSI's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER series. We will introduce corresponding BIOS updates for these models and encourage users to apply the updates accordingly for the optimal experience.

According to the report by Windows Central, Microsoft is preparing a major update for Windows 11, codenamed Hudson Valley, which is expected to be released later this year as "version 24H2" or the 2024 Update. This update is anticipated to be a substantial upgrade from last year's version 23H2, featuring performance, security, quality-of-life updates, and new features. The star of the 24H2 update is going to be the focus of next-generation AI experiences, a concept Microsoft has hinted at over the past year. Rumors suggest the introduction of an advanced Copilot that will leverage AI and machine learning to enhance the Windows user experience for improved productivity across apps, search, and more. According to sources, Microsoft is aiming for a September release window for version 24H2, with plans to finalize the update over the summer. Despite speculation that this update might be called "Windows 12" due to its alignment with next-gen AI PCs and experiences, sources indicate that it will likely remain a significant Windows 11 update, especially following the departure of ex-Windows chief Panos Panay.

Microsoft is currently testing some of the features of this next release in the Insider Canary Channel, providing a glimpse into the new features. The update will enhance Snap Layouts with machine learning, suggesting commonly snapped apps for a more streamlined user experience. File Explorer will now support the creation of 7zip and TAR compressed archive files, and PNG files will support viewing and editing metadata. The Quick Settings panel will be updated, allowing users to scroll through all available settings and include a new refresh button for the Wi-Fi list. Phone Link will also see improvements, including using a linked phone as a webcam. A new "Energy Saver" mode will be introduced, reducing system performance and saving energy on battery-powered and plugged-in PCs. General improvements include a new "Install drivers" button during the Wi-Fi setup page, the removal of several built-in Windows apps from the OS image, and a new "Windows protected print mode" for Mopria-certified printers.

Forza Motorsport Update 4 introduces the prestigious Daytona International Speedway—a truly iconic racetrack renowned for its marvels in engineering. Meanwhile, a new Italian Challengers Featured Tour invites you to build four staples of Italy's automotive heritage! Let's dive into the details. Update 4 will be available to download on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PCs and Steam beginning on Tuesday, January 16. New events across the Career, Featured Multiplayer and Rivals will start on Thursday, January 18.

Get ready for race weekend with Daytona, new Spotlight cars and the Italian Challengers Tour
On Tuesday we'll share details about the fixes contained in Update 4. This version is focused on new content and events, and contains only minor fixes for car and track content compared to our previous updates. Work on game fixes to address top community issues is ongoing—look out for additional improvements in Update 5 and beyond.

NVIDIA has recently revised its specification sheet for the upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU—a small mistake was included in their review guide and marketing material. Team Green workers were likely in a rush to get everything ready for RTX 40xx SUPER range's official unveiling at CES 2024, so a typo here and there is not unexpected. The RTX 4070 SUPER's AD104 GPU configuration was advertised as offering a 20% core count upgrade over the vanilla RTX 4070 (non-SUPER), but detail sensitive sleuths were somewhat puzzled with the SUPER's L2 cache designation of 36 MB. Various 2023 leaks suggested that 48 MB was the correct value; representing a 33% jump up from the standard 4070's L2 pool. We must note that TPU's GPU database had the correct spec entry since day one.

CD Projekt Red released the final chunks of post-launch content for their blockbuster action role-player last autumn—Cyberpunk 2077 was handsomely padded-out with a significant Update 2.0 as well as the well received Phantom Liberty campaign expansion. Company leadership confirmed in October that CDPR development departments would be focusing on a full-blown sequel, rather than produce further DLC add-ons for the first entry in the series. Igor Sarzyńsk, the sequel's narrative director, announced earlier this week that he had arrived at CD Projekt Red's recently established office in Boston, Massachusetts. This new outfit appears to be separate from CD Projekt's other East Coast studio: The Molasses Flood.

Sarzyńsk's tweet establishes that CDPR's new-ish North American team is working on Cyberpunk 2077 Part Deux: "First day in the Boston office! So good to meet old friends and officially kickstart our Orion journey. I couldn't be more excited for this project and I'm sure we can make it something special. 2077 was just a warm-up 🔥." Gaming news outlets have focused a lot of attention on Sarzyńsk's (slightly premature) implication that the CP2077 sequel is going to be greater in scope. The original game had a troubled development cycle, so it will be interesting to see how a combination of studio veterans and new staff get a handle on the successor—especially with a switch over to Epic's Unreal Engine 5. Cyberpunk 2077 was the final game to utilize the company's proprietary REDengine.

Bethesda has released its "end of the year update" for Starfield, as well as shared some statistics from the game, including the fact that it has been played by 13 million players. In addition, Bethesda has also promised updates every six weeks, starting in February next year.

While the published statistics do not give a lot of details and those 13 million players do not translate to actual sold games, mostly due to the Xbox Game Pass, it does have some fun facts, including that the game has over 22 million days played, with 40 hours as an average playtime per player, and that players have visited nearly 2 billion planets. As of February next year, Bethesda's new updates for Starfield will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Bethesda has also promised the all new gameplay options, as well as the official mod support with the launch of Creations. The first major expansion for the game, Shattered Space, is also under development and more information should be available next year.

GIGABYTE Technology, a leading global powerhouse in motherboards, graphics cards, and cutting-edge hardware solutions, has always committed to improving user experiences and proactively preventing any unforeseen issues, announces a crucial software update for its users.

GIGABYTE has received user feedback regarding unexpected behavior and issues when using certain brand memory modules in conjunction with GCC (GIGABYTE Control Center). After thorough investigation, it was identified that some DDR modules did not comply with JEDEC specifications, leading to the failure of SPD write protection. The issue was promptly addressed within a month by updating the BIOS to enable SPD write protection from motherboard side, thereby assisting customers in avoiding and resolving the problem.

According to the discovery made by @ghost_motley on X/Twitter, we have information that MSI is starting to roll out BIOS updates to accommodate Intel's Application Optimization called APO shortly. This update, however, comes with significant restrictions. Intel APO, designed to enhance performance, is exclusively compatible with 14th Gen Intel CPUs, leaving owners of previous-generation Intel processors, mainly the closely comparable 13th Gen, without this benefit. Intel's APO is an extension of its Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT) specifically for gaming. It is available on select 14th Gen Core processors like the i9-14900K/KF, enhancing workload distribution across hardware resources like P-cores and optimizing them for peak frequencies.

As noted, the current rollout of Intel APO support is limited, namely to the Intel Core i7-14700K, i7-14700KF, i9-14900K, and i9-14900KF, excluding the Core i5 series. This omission is significant given APO's focus on boosting gaming performance, a feature that would be highly beneficial to Core i5 users. However, the feature is currently supported by only two games: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege and Metro Exodus. The frame rate improvements in Rainbow can be as high as 13% while also boosting Metro Exodus FPS by 16%. Whether we will see more APO-optimized games or not, owners of MSI motherboards have received their updates and are ready to enjoy the FPS increase.

Valve has announced an updated version of the Steam Deck and the headline feature is the new 7.4-inch OLED display. That's a mere 0.4-inches bigger than the original Steam Deck LCD display and it retains the same 1280 x 800 resolution. However, everything else related to the display has been improved and the refresh rate is now 90 Hz rather than 60 Hz. The display is also a lot brighter, with an SDR rating of 600 nits and an HDR rating of 1000 nits. Valve also claims a 110 percent P3 colour gamut, a one million to one contrast ratio and a sub 0.1 ms response time. On top of that, Valve has added what the company calls "high performance touch" which is said to improve the responsiveness of the display.

It's not just the display that has been improved, as Valve has moved to a 6 nm AMD Zen 2 based SoC which seems to allow the GPU to run at 1.6 GHz at all times, as Valve no longer lists a frequency range for the GPU. The power envelope remains the same though, with a range of 4-15 Watts. Paired with the new SoC is faster LPDDR5 memory at 6400 MT/s, up from 5500 MT/s, which should provide a small boost in gaming performance. An improved cooling solution is also part of the package, which is also likely a reason for the more constant GPU clocks. Gone are the entry level storage SKUs and the OLED version of the Steam Deck only comes with 512 GB or 1 TB of internal storage. The WiFi and Bluetooth module has also been overhauled and now supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The battery has also been boosted from a 40 Whr pack to a 50 Whr pack and Valve now claims three to 12 hours of battery life during gaming, as well as faster charging times. Finally the weight has dropped by 29 grams, which might not be much, but still impressive considering the larger battery pack. The downside you ask? That would be the price, as Valve is asking for US$549/€569 for the 512 GB version, with the 1 TB coming at US$649/€679 when it becomes available on the 16th of November.

Bethesda has released its latest beta patch for Starfield, adding official support for NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation, fixing several issues, and implementing further CPU and GPU optimizations. The November 8th Beta Update, as it is called, is only available via Steam Beta Update, and it should go live to all Xbox and PC players later this month.

According to the release notes, the new update adds NVIDIA DLSS support with DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame Generation. The update also fixes several performance and stability issues, including a fix for a number of memory related issues and leaks, additional GPU optimizations that will benefit higher-end graphics cards, and improvements to the renderer threading model that should improve CPU usage on higher-end systems. The update also includes various stability and performance improvements.

Today marks the end of support for Itanium's IA-64 architecture in the Linux kernel's 6.7 update—a significant milestone in the winding-down saga of Intel Itanium. Itanium, initially Intel's ambitious venture into 64-bit computing, faced challenges and struggled throughout its existence. It was jointly developed by Intel and HP but encountered delays and lacked compatibility with x86 software, a significant obstacle to its adoption. When AMD introduced x86-64 (AMD64) for its Opteron CPUs, which could run x86 software natively, Intel was compelled to update Xeon, based on x86-64 technology, leaving Itanium to fade into the background.

Despite ongoing efforts to sustain Itanium, it no longer received annual CPU product updates, and the last update came in 2017. The removal of IA-64 support in the Linux kernel will have a substantial impact since Linux is an essential operating system for Itanium CPUs. Without ongoing updates, the usability of Itanium servers will inevitably decline, pushing the (few) remaining Itanium users to migrate to alternative solutions, which are most likely looking to modernize their product stack.

Today, AMD invades PC Building Simulator 2, as the Ryzen and Radeon brands get the star treatment in their very own AMD-themed workshop for the hit game from Epic Games. Available now on the Epic Games Store, you can grow your empire as you learn to repair, build and customize PCs at the next level. Experience deeper simulation, an upgraded career mode, and powerful new customization features. Use realistic parts from 40+ hardware brands to bring your ultimate PC to life.

In today's v1.6 update, developer Spiral House is sharpening up their peripheral options, unpacking some of the latest cases, adding two much anticipated graphics cards, and seeing a knight about a shovel. But even better? In today's update, players can give their workshop a "Red Team" makeover with the all-new AMD Workshop Theme. Check out PC Building Simulator 2 here.

Unlock the rich history and stories of two remarkable civilizations—The Mountain Royals is now live! The exciting next expansion is available now on Steam, and the Microsoft & Xbox Stores. There so much to delve in to with two new civilizations, three new, fully-voiced campaigns, plus the newly updated Persian civilization.

Prepare to embark on a legendary journey as we introduce the "The Mountain Royals" DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Unlock the rich history and untold stories of two remarkable civilizations, the Armenians and Georgians, and immerse yourself in three captivating new campaigns: Tamar, Thoros the Great, and Ismail. Lead the Charge! Forge Empires! Get "The Mountain Royals" DLC Now and Conquer History Anew!

Today we are excited to ship SteamVR 2.0 to all users! In this release we're bringing all of what's new and exciting on the Steam platform into VR. This is our first big step in a larger ongoing effort to better unify the Steam ecosystem for all users, providing a more consistent experience across devices. This update also allows us to add new Steam features in the future much faster and more frequently.

Some things you'll discover today:

• Most of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR
• Updated keyboard with support for dual-cursor typing, new languages, emojis, and themes
• Integration of Steam Chat and Voice Chat
• Improved Store that puts new and popular VR releases front and center
• Easy access to Steam notifications

Blizzard has released the release notes for Diablo IV 1.2 Patch that will be launching on October 17th, alongside Season of Blood. According to Blizzard, some updates come as a result of the community feedback, and include fixes for specific platforms and some that are general updates for all platforms.

The biggest update is that new Unique Items, that can only be acquired by playing on World Tier IV in either the Eternal or Seasonal Realms, are now much more powerful, something that has been requested by community. Blizzard has also updated Elemental Resistances, that will now be much more important, and includes extensive class overhauls, updating pretty much all classes and their abilities. The new Diablo IV 1.2 Patch also includes a bunch of gameplay, experience, balance, and Battle Pass updates, as well as comes with an extensive list of bug fixes.

Bethesda has released a new Starfield Update 1.7.36, which brings the previously promised updates to the game as well as fixes general stability and performance. While the previous update resolved some issues with AMD GPUs, namely the issue that caused lens flares not to appear correctly, issues with upscaling, and more, the latest one focuses on Intel Arc GPUs.

Bethesda made quite a few update promises, including built-in mod support and top community requests, but so far, updates have focused on general performance and stability issues. The latest one is not an exception either, but it does bring the promised FOV slider as well as improved stability for Intel Arc GPUs. It also adds various additional stability and performance improvements.

The scheduled maintenance carried out last week has fixed the initial matchmaking issues that occurred during Payday 3's first few days after launch. Matchmaking has been stable and has had good performance after the completed maintenance. In the past five days, PAYDAY 3 had a peak concurrent players (CCU) of 124,254. In September 2023, the game had 3,167,938 unique players (MAU). Starbreeze Nebula has a total of 4,538,702 registered users across all titles.

Starbreeze will now intensify the commercial activities around Payday 3, after partially pausing these during the previous week. In early October, the first update to Payday 3 will launch, focusing on improving the game experience. The coming months include planned updates for PAYDAY 3 that address both content, Quality of Life-improvements, bug fixes and new functionality.