Nvidia’s share price drops along with other AI firms, but all is peachy as they collectively remain some of the most valuable companies on the planet-

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The onset of AI has clearly been a fortuitous development for Nvidia, as well as for other companies cemented in the AI industry. But there’s rarely a linear path for companies even in such promising markets, and we see hints of this now with Nvidia’s and other AI companies’ share prices starting to drop.

As the BBC points out, share prices have dropped for a number of tech companies in both the US and Asia. This includes Nvidia, which has seen its shares drop by 6.8%. Other companies facing losses include Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla.

Although we PC gamers might sometimes be loathe to admit it, Nvidia is an AI company, now, not a PC gaming company. And although it’s been a titan supplier for the datacentre industry prior to AI, the company has skyrocketed by pretty much every metric since the AI boom, as it’s currently the number one seller of chips for AI workloads. Heck, Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company just one month ago.

And we should certainly remember this when we hear talk of share prices falling. Nvidia is still the AI titan it was last month, as are the other AI companies now seeing downturn. To take ano…

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Final Fantasy 14- Dawntrail’s preliminary patch notes are here—showing fixes to those annoying stealth quests and the ability to banish NPC-crowding players to the shadow realm-

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Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is coming at you fast. With a 48 hour maintenance due to start tomorrow, and early access beginning on Friday, it’s time to plonk on your sea legs and head to Tural—but not before obsessively coming through some patch notes, of course.

In typical Square Enix fashion, the 7.0 patch notes have arrived ahead of the big update (which includes the much-anticipated graphical overhaul). Unlike my coverage of most patches, however, there’s a lot of ground to retread here, since we already knew a bunch of this was coming as per a handful of media tours—we know about the graphical facelift, we know there’ll be new tribal quests, and we know that the blacklist system is getting an overdue overhaul. FF14’s structures have, bar Endwalker’s experiments with Variant Dungeons, remained largely unchanged.

What interests me more is a whole bunch of quality-of-life improvements included therein that should make questing a whole lot better, which is great, because there’s a lot of questing in this game—hundreds of hours worth. Let’s run down the list.

First up, if you’re trying to click on a quest giver, you can now enable an …

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At $530 this 32-inch 4K gaming monitor will make up for that RTX 4080 ‘investment’ you made-

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A tasty gaming monitor offering here, the Gigabyte M32UC is one of our favourite 4K monitors thanks to its affordability, practical USB hub integration, and high refresh that’s actually overclockable. You can get the M32UC at Newegg for $530 right now, when you use code GTRDCTA3254.

That’s a good $100 cheaper than the listing price. In other words, now might be a good time to invest in a 32-inch, curved gaming monitor.

We scored the M32UC at 87 in our recent review, and for a panel that’s generally priced at $600, its already a good budget buy without the discount. Right now it’s on our best gaming monitors list as the “best affordable 4K gaming monitor”, in fact, so you can expect a no-frills goodie that gets the job done, but at much less of an investment than your average 4K gaming monitor.

Not only does this thing rock a 2ms grey-to-grey response time, it comes in with a 144Hz refresh rate, so you can make the most of high-powered graphics cards like Nvidia’s RTX 4090 or the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. 

And if you manage to push your frame rates past the 144 fps mark, you also have the option to overclock up to 160Hz to match it. Whe…

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Suicide Squad- Kill the Justice League is delayed to 2024-

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More than a month after a rumor of a Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League delay first came to light, it’s finally official, and the wait will be even longer than expected: Warner Brothers announced today that it’s now slated to come out on February 2, 2024.

“We have made the tough but necessary decision to take the time needed to work on getting the game to be the best quality experience for players,” WBIE announced on Twitter. “Thank you to our amazing community for the continued support, patience, and understanding. There is much more to share in the months ahead and we look forward to seeing you in Metropolis next year.”

Suicide Squad didn’t exactly knock our socks off when we laid eyes on it during a State of Play livestream in February. It’s a looter-shooter, alright: Everyone has guns, everyone can fly, and as staff writer Morgan Park noted at the time, its blaring blend of chaos and noise is “a major departure from Rocksteady’s methodical Arkham series and a stark contrast to WB Montreal’s recently-released Gotham Knights.”

It’s a lengthy delay, but not the first: Suicide Squad was originally supposed to be out sometime in 2022, but in March of that ye…

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Starting next month, Steam will tell you if a game has native PlayStation controller support-

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In a Tuesday blog post aimed at developers, Valve announced a new Steam feature that users will soon benefit from: the ability for developers to mark their games as DualShock 4 and DualSense compatible. The Steamworks backend will now ask developers whether their games support the PlayStation 4 and 5 controllers, and next month that information will begin to appear on store and library pages.

Thanks to Valve’s controller configurator, which is built into Steam, it’s already trivially easy to use both controllers in Steam games. Lack of native support means they likely won’t have PlayStation button icons in-game, though, which can be confusing. And there’s good reason for developers to indicate whether they have native PlayStation controller support, because Sony’s controllers have some features Microsoft’s don’t.

The DualSense’s haptic triggers, for instance, offer a unique physical experience that Sony supports in a few of its first-party games. Games that natively support Xbox controllers but only work with the PlayStation pads through Valve’s API won’t currently take full advantage of the DualSense. Maybe bringing this information to the surface will encourage mor…

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Steam Sports Fest sale features birds, racoons, pro wrestlers, and the lowest price ever on FIFA 23 on PC—but sorry, no race cars-

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Valve has kicked off the Steam Sports Fest, an all-new Steam sale dedicated to sports, and if you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t like sports games,” it’s worth checking out anyway: What qualifies as a “sport” in this sale is defined very loosely.

There are plenty of conventional sports games to be had, and some very good discounts too. FIFA 23, for instance, is $21/£18/€21 (70% off) and NBA 2K23 is down to $10/£8/€10, an 84% discount. That’s the lowest FIFA 23 has ever been on Steam, according to isthereanydeal.com, and just about as low as NBA 2K23 has gone. 

PGA Tour 2K23 is 67% off, taking it to $20/£16.50/€20, and if you’re more of a behind-the-scenes guy than an on-field presence, there’s Football Manager 2023 at $36/£27/€36, a 40% reduction.

But I told you I don’t like sports games, you protest! Why am I here? To that I say, consider these, Sport:

  • Skatebird – $10/£8/€10 (50% off)
  • TheHunter: Call of the Wild – $6/£6/€6 (70% off)
  • Session – $20/£17.50/€20 (50% off)
  • Descende…
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Let’s Build a Zoo will soon let you build an aquarium, too-

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Let’s Build a Zoo, the zoo management sim that lets players cross-breed new animal species, has announced its second expansion. Named Aquarium Odyssey, this slippery slice of DLC will let players build and manage their own aquatic enclosures, filling tanks with all manner of weird and wonderful sea life.

The announcement was accompanied by a short new trailer demonstrating the waves of new features the expansion will bring. Naturally, the main attraction is the 50 new species of animal you’ll get to look after, including whales, sharks, starfish, swordfish, and er, regular fish (I can’t be specific because the trailer is only a minute long and the sprites are very small). These budding fruits de mer can be housed in seven new enclosures, while your Aquarium can be dressed up with over a hundred new shops and decorations.

All this is explorable in a new campaign that publisher No More Robots reckons will keep players busy for at least another twenty hours. There’s no word on what new challenges looking after perpetually wet animals will involve, but presumably you’ll have to manage factors like air filtration, separate your sharks from your salmon, and so for…

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After a historically bad launch, Star Wars- Battlefront Classic Collection’s first patch has fans cautiously optimistic- ‘Faith is being restored’-

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The Battlefront Classic Collection released last week to some absolutely withering reviews, quickly spiralling all the way down to the bottom of the Steam user rating barrel: an ominously red “Overwhelmingly Negative” grading. But maybe there’s light at the end of the Death Star trench run?

Aspyr released the first patch for the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection earlier today, bringing a suite of changes, tweaks and fixes to the collection. That’s only to be expected—both games in the package were massively underbaked—but more surprising is that the community seems to have greeted the patch with something approaching cautious optimism.

Over on the Battlefront subreddit, fans have been pleasantly surprised by the scope of the patch’s fixes: “Bodes well for the future,” reads a much-upvoted post by user CarterDavison, “1-3 more of these and I think it’s in a solid place.”

“Rise of the Empire cutscenes fixed?” That’s awesome news. That combined with the invert fix and invisible walls were major fixes I need,” reads a reply from GeneralChaz9, “Faith is being restored.”

Other responses strike the same pleasantly surprised tone, with players…

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Can you guess which 2 mysterious games Deus Ex director Warren Spector secretly worked on, but decided not to be credited for–

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Veteran PC game creator Warren Spector is credited with working on 46 games on Mobygames, though that may not be a perfectly comprehensive list for a designer and director who’s been making games since the 1980s. Actually, it’s definitely not a perfectly comprehensive list—while Mobygames has Spector’s credits on the likes of Deus Ex (producer and project director), Ultima 6 (writing), and Epic Mickey (creative director), there’s no way for the Mobygames database to include projects he wasn’t credited on to begin with.

As Spector revealed in PC Gamer’s roundtable interview with other longtime game creators, there were a couple games he decided not to be associated with during his career.

“I worked on two games that I took my name off of because I don’t want to be associated with them,” Spector said. “I have never revealed what they are. But if anybody guesses—both games shipped, they just don’t have my name on them.”

I asked Spector if he’d like to give a hint, but he quipped back an immediate “no,” so your only clues are his lengthy resume and the fact that the games did actually end up getting released. Across his 30+ year career Spector’…

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Ubisoft adds another studio to what seems like an increasingly desperate effort to finally get Prince of Persia- The Sands of Time Remake finished-

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A year after announcing that work on the long-struggling Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was starting over from square one, Ubisoft has roped another studio into it: Ubisoft Toronto is now on the job.

The Sands of Time Remake was announced in 2020 with a planned release in 2021, which in hindsight proved to be wildly optimistic. Instead, Ubisoft moved the game from its Pune and Mumbai studios to Ubisoft Montreal, which didn’t look great but at least had some nostalgic appeal: Ubisoft Montreal is the developer of the original Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Instead of visible progress, though, there was another delay, and near the end of 2022 Ubisoft fired out refunds for all extant preorders, although it insisted the game was still happening. A year after that, Ubisoft said things were coming along nicely after the development reboot, but not so nicely that it was willing to commit to a new release target.

Which brings us to now, and the new involvement of Ubisoft Toronto—although Ubisoft Montreal is still working on it too.

“Ubisoft Toronto is joining the development of the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time!” the studio …

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Why bother using spinning fans to cool your PC when you can just spin your whole rig–

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These days, you can’t really get away with having a desktop PC without fans. Sure it’s possible if your CPU’s TDP is low enough, but desktops generally still need some kind of airflow. So, how about this: Instead of using spinning fans to move air through your PC, you spin the PC itself? That’s exactly what Sodabaka did over at their Bilibili channel (via Tom’s Hardware), with some funny results.

Sodabaka began by testing an older Sandy Bridge era i5 2500K Mini-ITX system with an atypical tower heatsink. They placed it into a centrifuge that caused the entire PC to spin. I could not tell how fast exactly, but it looked to be around three revolutions per second.

A PC needs wires connected to provide power and a display output, but Sodabaka got around this by cleverly rigging up some wires so they don’t get all twisted up after half a revolution.

This PC ended up being a bit too hot for comfort, reaching temperatures in the 100 degrees Celsius range, leading to throttling. So, it’s not exactly a viable PC cooling solution. Not that I expected anything different! Not to be deterred, Sodabaka went on to equip a much larger Noctua NH-P1 passive cooler with and witho…

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Wordle today- Hint and answer for #835 Monday, October 2-

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There’s a hint for today’s Wordle waiting just below if you’d like a helping hand with your daily game, as well as a selection of general tips designed to improve every guess you make, too. Need something a little more direct? I’ve got it covered. The answer to the October 2 (835) Wordle is never more than a quick click away.

I do love it when I get to kick off my Wordle week with a quick game, everything falling into the right places before I’ve even had a chance to rush off down all the wrong rabbit holes with far too many wasted guesses. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to say the same tomorrow—fingers crossed.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Monday, October 2

Thinking of cheerful celebrations and happy feelings will help you solve this one. You’re most likely to see this word on Christmas cards, but you might also remember this as the name of one of The Lord of the Ring’s hobbits. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If you’ve decided to play Wordl…

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You can’t take it with you, but you can’t leave it for someone else either- Valve says you aren’t allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will-

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First reported by Ars Technica, ResetEra user delete12345 has made an interesting discovery about Steam libraries: we’re not allowed to bequeath them to our loved ones in the event of our untimely passing.

Delete12345 asked Steam Support about the hypothetical scenario, and got a clear, professional, but very disappointing response. “Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable,” the support rep explained. “Steam Support can’t provide someone else with access to the account or merge its access to another account.

“I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will.”

Now, I was going to suggest that you can just give your designated heir the Steam login and password without getting lawyers involved⁠—barring a sudden tragedy or Knives Out-style scenario where your grasping heirs are at each other’s throats trying to secure your estate, that should work perfectly fine. But it turns out that would be in flagrant violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement. 

“You may not reveal, share, or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account except as otherwise specifically authorized by V…

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Wordle hint and answer #608- Friday, February 17-

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Win today’s Wordle your way with our convenient range of hints and tips. If you’d like a little help with the February 17 (608) challenge, then today’s clue will point you in the right direction, and if you’d like a lot of help right now, then don’t worry because today’s answer is only a quick click away.

The yellows stuck around for far too long today, and when they did turn green, they were in exactly the sort of places I didn’t expect them to sit, so they weren’t half as helpful as I needed them to be. I did find the answer, but only on the very last go. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s Wordle isn’t quite so stressful.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Friday, February 17

Today’s answer is a hidden place, often in the ground, used to store essential or valuable items—food and general supplies, for example. It’s also a type of temporary load-improving storage used by web browsers and other programs that you may need to clear from time to time. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day  Continue Reading