Where You Buy Your Computer Cases?

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has arrived on PC, with players facing huge waves of Tyranid foes in levels that stress even high-end CPU and GPU hardware to their limits. This title is often CPU-limited, especially in levels where you're engulfing ripper swarms with flamers, but judicious settings choices can still claw back some extra performance.
One of the most impactful settings is SSR quality, which can be set to off, default or high. Our testing shows around a 10 percent performance advantage from using the default setting rather than high, as measured on an RTX 4060 using DLSS native. This does produce noticeably lower-res reflections, but the extra performance is hard to pass up.
More of a free win is the volumetrics setting, which can be set to medium rather than high for a one percent performance advantage with little visible difference. It's a similar story with the detail setting, which can be set to medium rather than ultra for another one percent performance uplift. Default SSAO is also worth considering versus the high setting, which does result in lighter screen-space ambient occlusion and some extra aliasing, but frame-rates climb by around three percent.
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The proposed sales of Metro studio 4A Games, as well as that of Pinball developer Zen Studios, has been cancelled, Embracer announced today.
In March of this year, Embracer announced the sale of more of its assets, including large portions of Saber Interactive, for the price of $247m. At this time, Saber's new CEO Matt Karch stated the company had decided to take 4A and Zen with it, despite initial messaging from Embracer suggesting the Swedish conglomerate may retain the two studios.
Now, however, the potential sale of both studios has been cancelled, and 4A and Zen will remain within Embracer.
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There are reports the upcoming Nintendo Switch release The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has leaked.
It appears a link to a rom containing the entire game has started making its way online. Nintendo-focused YouTuber Nintendo Prime said they "have confirmed" it is real.
In a separate YouTube video, Nintendo Prime stated they checked the link they had been sent, and it was "the rom for Echoes of Wisdom". The YouTuber - who has not shared any of the leaked footage, stating they are not distributing the rom as it's "illegal and career ending to do so" - said Echoes of Wisdom is now playable on emulators.
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Sony has updated yesterday's blog post on the forthcoming Welcome Hub to remove an image of a PS VR2 charging icon that caused speculation of a possible wireless model.
The Welcome Hub allows users to customise their own tab with various widgets, including the battery charge of accessories. However, the image used in the blog post included a controller, earbuds, and what looks like a PS VR2 headset.
But the PS VR2 is wired and doesn't require a battery charge. So why was this icon included?
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Bungie has "resolved" a plagiarism accusation after an artist accused the studio of lifting their alternative design of an "iconic" Destiny 2 weapon.
Earlier this week, Bungie revealed a physical Nerf LMTD blaster based upon Cayde-6's hand cannon, Ace of Spades.
Shortly after the blaster was revealed, artist Tofu_Rabbit called out the developer on Twitter/X, stating the Nerf design was not merely "similar" to a design they did back in 2015, but essentially a carbon copy, down to the "same brush strokes and scratches/smudges".
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Last night, the industry was shocked to learn the entire staff at indie video game publisher Annapurna Interactive had resigned. This exodus followed after negotiations with Annapurna owner Megan Ellison met an impass.
As Matt reported last night, these departures caused "chaos" among Annapurna Interactive's game developer partners. An Annapurna spokesperson confirmed all existing games and projects will remain with the company, while new president Hector Sanchez reportedly told developers all contracts will be honoured and that all Annapurna Interactive staff will be replaced.
In the time since, many developers have taken to social media to assure their communities of the status of various projects tied to the publisher.
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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week we've been returning to the Dragon Age game that started it all, Origins; we've been revelling in Sony's latest PlayStation blockbuster, Astro Bot; and we've been returning to the tender times of teenage life in Until Then.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive.
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Annapurna Interactive - the video game publisher behind the acclaimed likes of Outer Wilds, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Cocoon - has reportedly seen a complete exodus of staff following a dispute with the company's owner, causing "chaos" among developer partners.


According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, around two dozen employees - including Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary and other executives - resigned after negotiations with Annapurna owner Megan Ellison broke down. Gary and his time had reportedly been negotiating to spin off Annapurna Interactive - Annapurna's video-game publishing wing - as an independent entity, but ultimately failed to reach an agreement with Ellison.


Bloomberg claims the departures have caused "chaos" among Annapurna Interactive's game developer partners - who've all signed deals with the publisher to secure the likes of funding, QA, and marketing - as they've sought reassurances about their projects' future. However, an Annapurna spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that all existing games and projects will remain with the company, while new president Hector Sanchez is said to have told developers all contracts will be honoured and that all Annapurna Interactive staff will be replaced.

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Having teased The Sims 4's latest season of content last week, EA has more firmly detailed its upcoming Storybook Nursery Kit and Artist Studio Kit DLC releases, which are both now set to arrive next Thursday, 19th September.


Starting with The Sims 4's Artist Studio Kit, it includes - as you've probably already guessed - a bunch of new furniture items and decorative bric-a-brac that can be combined to make a suitably chaotic space for Sims to unleash their creativity.


"Set up your new easel in the centre of your studio," EA writes, "surrounded by tools of the trade – a variety of brushes, colourful paint cans and new inspiring still-life objects that Sims can paint from reference or draw creativity from." Expect drawers and shelves, tubes of paint, sketchbooks, palettes, plus a new tablet and woodworking table.

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Tony Hawk has revealed he's "been talking to Activision again" about the Pro Skater series ahead of its 25th anniversary this September.


The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater debuted on 29th September 1999, and would go on to receive four further numbered entries - alongside dozens of spin-offs - culminating in 2020's critically acclaimed (and record-breaking) remake of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2.


Unfortunately, plans to give Pro Skater 3 & 4 a similar remake treatment were reportedly scrapped after Activision made the decision to merge developer Vicarious Visions into Blizzard - so it could serve as a support studio for the Diablo franchise and other titles.

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The world of Assassin's Creed Shadows is beautiful. At Gamescom 2024 in Cologne last month, Ubisoft refrained from providing a fresh chance to go hands-on with its highly-anticipated upcoming epic - for that, we'll have to wait just a little bit longer. Instead, the publisher gave press a look behind the scenes at more of the game's visual prowess, via a presentation on Shadows' environmental upgrades and new graphical fidelity.


Ubisoft's vast virtual version of Japan features in the first Assassin's Creed made solely for the current-gen of consoles - and it looks the part, with dense forests and towering mountains, dynamic weather and shifting seasons. The game's exact technical specs are still to be confirmed, but I was impressed by its clear upgrade from other Assassin's Creed games past, particularly in its eye-catching smaller details, such as rain running realistically down bamboo guttering, or stalls full of fruit you can topple, sending their contents scattering across a road.


Online, however, some of the response to Shadows has been less pretty. In June, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot condemned "the malicious and personal online attacks" directed at the game's developers after its initial reveal. Separately, Assassin's Creed franchise head Marc-Alexis Côté has spoken about having to take "a step back" rather than respond to criticism of the game on social media from X owner Elon Musk.

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Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has revealed its next Premium Warbond, known as Chemical Agents.
Chemical Agents comes complete with some "seriously deadly toys", including stratagems, utilities, emotes and more.
On the Warbond's release, players will be able to get their hands on the likes of the TX-41 Sterilizer, the G-4 Gas grenade (which will "cover the whole area in a cloud of noxious fumes") and the new utility P-11 Stim Pistol. You can check out the gas-filled trailer for Chemical Agents below.
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Unity has cancelled the controversial Runtime Fee for use of its game engine tools, which charged developers for each game install, with immediate effect.
The pricing plan was introduced in September last year and was heavily criticised by game developers, calling it an "astonishing scumbag move" among other responses.
Today, in a blog post from new president and CEO of Unity Matt Bromberg, the company announced it will revert back to a traditional subscription model "after deep consultation with our community, customers, and partners".
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Planet Coaster 2, the sequel to the popular theme park management game, now has a confirmed release date of 6th November 2024.
Developer Frontier first announced the game back in July, which adds water parks to its list of thrills, as well as various enhanced tools and quality of life changes.
The release date is across all platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The game is now available to pre-order.
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Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most interesting console games I've seen in a while. There's a clear PC focus, with the PlayStation 5 version featuring a trio of awkward graphics modes - none of which quite hit the target. I also get the sense it's a game tailor-made for the PlayStation 5 Pro, assuming that the features of the hardware are put to good use. Using the PC version of the game, I decided to look at 'BMW' on a number of fronts. Could the resources of the standard PS5 be better utilised for smoother gameplay? To what extent would PS5 Pro be a game-changer? And what of Series S: if Game Science had issues with the PS5 version, can Microsoft's junior Xbox hack it?
First up, let's quickly recap what BMW is doing on PlayStation 5. Quality mode targets 4K and has a dynamic resolution between 1224p and 1584p. Frame-rate looks to be unlocked to my eye, so I'm curious how the dynamic resolution system may be working. Even so, I think this is the most competent mode in the current game. Next up, the balance mode: this looks like a hard-set 1080p resolution with no DRS but an utterly bizarre 45fps cap which makes it jerky on any display likely to be connected to the PlayStation 5. Finally there's the performance mode - this is using frame generation from 30fps to 60fps. It's fundamentally a bad idea as one of the key ideas behind a performance mode is to reduce lag, not increase it as is the case here.
For my tests, I used the Digital Foundry Frankenstein's PC - a Windows unit built on a motherboard hosting the actual Xbox Series X CPU, paired with the Radeon RX 6700, an AMD graphics card that has much in common with the PS5 GPU. It's a mish-mash of console-equivalent parts, yet it's proven to be capable of delivering very console-like results. By using the balance mode with its fixed resolution, paired with graphics options matched to console equivalents, we can benchmark our set-up to see how close to PS5 performance we get. It turns out that the console is slightly faster - around seven to 10 percent in some scenarios. So, when we carry out our tests, we could likely expect console performance to actually be a touch faster.
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