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Potential Next-gen AMD EPYC "Venice" CPU Identifier Turns Up in Linux Kernel Update

InstLatX64 has spent a significant chunk of time investigating AMD web presences; last month they unearthed various upcoming "Zen 5" processor families. This morning, a couple of mysterious CPU identifiers—"B50F00, B90F00, BA0F00, and BC0F00"—were highlighted in a social media post. According to screen-captured information, Team Red's Linux team seems to be patching in support for "Zen 6" technologies—InstLatX64 believes that the "B50F00" ID and internal "Weisshorn" codename indicate a successor to AMD's current-gen EPYC "Turin" server-grade processor series (known internally as "Breithorn"). Earlier in the month, a set of AIDA64 Beta update release notes mentioned preliminary support for "next-gen AMD desktop, server and mobile processors."

In a mid-April (2025) announcement, Dr. Lisa Su and colleagues revealed that their: "next-generation AMD EPYC processor, codenamed 'Venice,' is the first HPC product in the industry to be taped out and brought up on the TSMC advanced 2 nm (N2) process technology." According to an official "data center CPU" roadmap, "Venice" is on track to launch in 2026. Last month, details of "Venice's" supposed mixed configuration of "Zen 6" and "Zen 6C" cores—plus other technical tidbits—were disclosed via a leak. InstLatX64 and other watchdogs reckon that some of the latest identifiers refer to forthcoming "Venice-Dense" designs and unannounced Instinct accelerators.

CD Projekt RED Teases Upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 v2.3 Patch - Could be Substantial DLC Pack

Last March, CD Projekt RED (CDPR) announced the end of developing major content updates for Cyberpunk 2077. Instead, a smaller group would concentrate on pushing out smaller batches post-launch content. At the time, international studio priorities were shifting to next-gen productions—namely The Witcher 4 (Poland), and a Cyberpunk sequel (North America). The last multi-platform patch—version 2.21, consisting mostly of fixes and improvements—arrived on January 23. Almost half a year later, industry watchers have noticed intriguing Virtuos employee activity on LinkedIn—indicating some sort of "unannounced Cyberpunk 2077 DLC" collaboration with CDPR. Lately, this contract developer is best known for its modernization/remastering of Bethesda's classic The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) open world RPG.

During a mid-week "REDstreams—Cyberpunk 2077 on Nintendo Switch 2" live broadcast, Alicja Kozera—a company senior community manager—fielded queries from the community. One individual brought up the subject of rumored future DLC—Kozera responded: "I can tell you right now, we are planning another part for the game. The last one wasn't the (final) one." Yesterday evening, Marcin Momot—CDPR's Global Community Director—outlined a loose schedule, regarding an upcoming preview: "we're not done yet! Stay tuned for more info about the next Cyberpunk 2077 update coming later this month. We'll start spilling the beans closer to the release of patch 2.3 (that's its name), so for now, we ask for a bit more patience. Let the team cook!" Naturally, Virtuos has not been named as a collaborator. CDPR is no stranger to outsourcing; as revealed in a recent CyberPunk 2077 Switch 2 build discussion. Additionally, Saber Interactive was roped in as the primary porter of The Witcher 3 onto the original Switch hybrid console.

ELDEN RING Nightreign Attracts 3.5+ Million Nightfarers, Bandai Namco Teases "Duo Expeditions" Update

On the dawn of the fifth day, 3.5 million Nightfarers took up arms against the Night in ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN. We are ever grateful for your passion. But the Night is far from over. In addition to the DLC releasing later this year, new additions will be gradually implemented, including enhanced fights against existing Nightlords starting this month, as well as Duo Expeditions at a later date.Thank you for your support.

Nightfarers, Thank you for playing ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN. Patch 1.01.1 is out; it includes several bug fixes as well as improvements for solo expeditions. The following improvements for solo expeditions are added to the game:
  • The effect "Automatic Revival Upon Defeat", which allows revival once per night boss battle, will be added to solo expeditions.
  • The number of runes gained will be increased.

Final The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Update To Add Console and Cross-Platform Mods

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has just turned 10, and CD Projekt Red announced earlier this week that it would be celebrating the game's 10th anniversary with a set of Special Edition Xbox controllers and a slew of live events and memorabilia. Following those announcements, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that it has at least one more content update planned for The Witcher 3. The next, and seemingly the last, The Witcher 3 patch is slated to more or less unify the game's modification scene, bringing cross-platform mod support to the open-world fantasy RPG. CDPR has not confirmed an exact date for the cross-platform mod support update, stating only that it will be available "later this year."

According to a new support page detailing the cross-platform mod support, modders will now be able to publish their mods for The Witcher 3 on a platform called mod.io, which will allow players and modders to upload and download mods across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. This will be the only way for consoles to access mods for The Witcher 3, however PC players will still be able to use services like Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods, if they prefer. Unlike with third-party sites, like Nexus Mods, any mods published on mod.io will need to comply with certain guidelines laid out by both the console makers, Sony and Microsoft, and the CD Projekt Red Fan Content Guidelines and User Agreement. For this reason, the mod selection available on consoles will be less expansive than what's available on PC, where restrictions are less of a concern. In a technical sense, the only restrictions modders will face when using mod.io is that any console mods that use scripts will need to be made with CDPR's REDkit mod tools. Meanwhile, texture packs and other bundles can be created using any other tools.

Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate's Fortune Story Pack Available Now

In Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate's Fortune, the second story pack for Star Wars Outlaws, Kay Vess and her companion Nix team up with legendary pirate Hondo Ohnaka for a new adventure filled with pirates and lost treasures. A Pirate's Fortune is now available on Ubisoft+ Premium, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Amazon Luna, and PC via Ubisoft Connect, Epic Games Store, and Steam. For those who haven't played the open-world Star Wars game yet, a free demo is available on most platforms where Star Wars Outlaws is already available, giving players a chance to hop on their speeder, seek out a heavy to join their crew, and team up with Nix within a part of the base game for up to three hours. Star Wars Outlaws is also coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on September 4.

In A Pirate's Fortune, Kay and Nix set off to explore the Khepi system, a new space region containing a heavily ionized nebula, in search of hidden treasures. To uncover the secrets of the Khepi Tomb, they'll team up with Hondo Ohnaka to face off against Stinger Tash and her pirate gang, the Rokana Raiders. Along the way, they'll explore tempting opportunities with the Miyuki Trade League who offer new rewards for the Trailblazer in exchange for smuggling dangerous goods across the galaxy. Players must complete the main storyline in the base game before the story pack can be played. A Pirate's Fortune will be automatically accessible and free for Star Wars Outlaws Season Pass owners, or available as a separate purchase. Star Wars Outlaws Ultimate and Deluxe Edition owners will also receive the Naboo Nobility and Desert Nomad cosmetic packs with the release of the new story pack.

AMD Radeon "GFX13+" Target Found in Code Update; Linked to UDNA/RDNA 5 Architecture

Closer to the start of 2025, Kepler L2 shared "PlayStation 6" inside track info. The venerable leaker—of mostly AMD behind-the-scenes details—theorized that Sony's sixth-gen home console was based around an early fork that branched off from a mysterious "GFX13" GPU architecture. Earlier today, this target identifier has appeared again. Kepler L2's latest investigations have pulled the "GFX13+" target from kernel-level codebase updates. Data miners have often pulled compelling pre-release tidbits from official repositories; AMD's software engineering team open-source developments are quite visible. Over a year ago, similar detective work connected the "GFX12" IP to RDNA 4—nowadays, better known as the Radeon RX 9000 graphics card family. Despite Team Red's official insistence that RDNA 4 was a priority on desktop platforms, supposed discrete mobile variants were leaked last month. In addition, RDNA 3.5 seems to be a mainstay for at least another generation of integrated graphics solutions.

Looking beyond these current-gen graphics architectures, AMD leadership has already previewed a "unified" path forward. Last September's announcement revealed the convergence of RDNA (gaming) and CDNA (enterprise) GPU technologies: dubbed "UDNA." Present day leaks do mention a far out "RDNA 5" line (also "Navi 5x"), but in the same sentence as "UDNA." Kepler L2 commented on the (screen captured) presence of "ENABLE_WAVEFRONT" and "ENABLE_WAVEGROUP" kernel code properties: "I think it's related to SWC (Streaming Wave Coalescer/pseudo out-of-order execution). Each SIMD takes multiple wave32/wave64 (a wavegroup) as inputs and reorders the work items of each wave to reduce execution divergence." Fresh rumors suggest the distant RDNA 5/UDNA avenue being good enough to expand into higher-end gaming card territories. So far, RDNA 4 has hit a ceiling with Navi 48 GPU-powered Radeon 9070 XT offerings.

"Deadzone: Rogue" Early Access Edition Updated with Offline Single Player Mode

Added Offline Single Player Mode: players can now enjoy Deadzone's single-player mode offline, without an internet connection! This was our top-requested feature, and the #1 priority for our team to deliver this week. We really wanted to address this for the community ASAP, and hope you can enjoy the improved experience this weekend! Note: this is a large change for our back-end systems. We expect performance to be stable after internal testing, but will monitor the patch to make sure it acts as expected. Co-op mode will also still require an online connection, so players can share the same game experience in real time.

Added a new mission—Uniform Chaos II
In this mission, each room randomly spawns a horde of the same type of enemies to defeat. This approach builds on the Uniform Chaos I mission, and offers an even deeper level of enemy variety and challenge for experienced players. This mission can be found in Zone 2, we hope you enjoy it!

Hyper Light Breaker Buried Below Update Addresses Several Major Complaints As Dev Works to Salvage Roguelike

Hyper Light Breaker received some significant criticism immediately after launch, largely for clunky combat, insubstantial progression, and a lack of world-building. Some community feedback is to be expected, since Hyper Light Breaker is still in Steam Early Access, but the community backlash was unexpected, given the success that the game's predecessor, Hyper Light Drifter, garnered. The first major content update aimed at addressing much of the criticism has just dropped on Steam, and many of the changes seem to be welcome by the community.

Some of the biggest changes to Hyper Light Breaker introduced in the Buried Below update include changes to character progression, weapon synergies, and the overall gameplay loop itself. Heart Machine also introduced a new playable character, Rondo, two new melee weapons, a new mini boss—a Crown called Maw—with its own player perks, and new areas for players to explore. Heart Machine also says it has streamlined the game's onboarding process, and that the changes to the game should make the game easier to get into for new players but more difficult to master. In terms of the gameplay loop, the new update reduces player lives from four per run to one per run, making things much less forgiving, however, players will also now always spawn in one of two locations, making the start of a new run more predictable. There are also a number of improvements to the enemy AI that should make encounters and battles somewhat more challenging and interesting. Players are also locked to a single character and companion for the duration of each run, which is a substantial change from the previous system which allowed players to switch characters and Sycoms mid-run. There are a number of other balance patches and new additions, which you can read about in the full patch notes below. Overall, judging from the comments in the Steam Community discussion under the update patch notes, players seem to be tentatively excited about the majority of the changes to the gameplay loop, although some concerns remain.

Ubisoft Updates Far Cry 4 with 60 FPS Mode on Modern Consoles

Far Cry 4 (2014) will now run at 60 frames per second on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PS5 Pro, thanks to a free update deployed this week. Whether you're wingsuiting out of a gyrocopter for an aerial incursion, or wielding a rocket launcher atop an elephant as you charge into battle—the beautiful scenery and unbridled chaos have never been so inviting on console. Far Cry 4 will be coming to Game Pass for Xbox, PC, and cloud very soon. Alternatively, you can grab it for a big discount at one of these current sales: PlayStation Store (April 23-May 7), Xbox (April 20-May 5), and Ubisoft Store Legendary Sale (April 29-May 20).

Hidden in the towering Himalayas lies Kyrat, a country steeped in tradition and violence. You are Ajay Ghale. Traveling to Kyrat to fulfill your mother's dying wish, you find yourself caught up in a civil war to overthrow the oppressive regime of dictator Pagan Min. Explore and navigate this vast open world, where danger and unpredictability lurk around every corner. Here, every decision counts, and every second is a story. Welcome to Kyrat.

Larian Releases Final Baldur's Gate 3 Patch; Studio Moving onto "Something New"

Well folks, this is it. Our final major game patch for Baldur's Gate 3. You've helped us make BG3 a bigger success than any of us could've ever hoped for, and that passion could keep us tweaking things and making changes until the end of time. But then we'd never be able to create something new. Outside of minor bug fixing, Patch 8 will be the last game patch to introduce new content. That means we won't be adding any new narrative content or significant changes to storylines, Origin characters, or companions. We've told our stories the way we needed to tell them, and tried our best to make them impactful and engaging, and we're continuing to get better at handling our own chaos so that we can continue to create more chaos in the future.

From the start, your feedback has been incredibly important to us, and will continue to shape our future projects. As Swen said during the Baldur's Gate 3 retrospective panel at PAX West in August of last year, it's time for the team to go back to our cave and hang the armor on the wall while we focus on bringing you our next project. If you're already feeling nostalgic, you can click here to watch our last Baldur's Gate 3 panel, where we looked back on Baldur's Gate 3, from early access through to release, and answered some of your questions. From patching in a way to change your appearance with the Magic Mirror, introducing Honor Mode for those of you looking for a hard time, and giving you new ways to make out with your romanced companion, to new cinematics for your most evil runs, and handing you the tools to create your own supported mods, Patch 8 now rounds off with cross-play, Photo Mode, and 12 new subclasses for you to enjoy.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered Patched to v1.1 - Improves Performance & Addresses Stability Issues

Hey everyone, Patch 1.1 is out now for The Last of Us Part II Remastered! This update fixes various crashes, and we've addressed long stalls that could occur in some locations. We've also fixed several bugs related to the user interface and ultrawide cinematics. Check out the patch notes below for more details. We are aware of player reports of autosave issues and are actively working on a fix.

Our investigation shows that issues can occur when OneDrive or similar cloud services block the save file from being written. As a workaround, we suggest that you pause OneDrive while playing the game: Right-click the OneDrive icon in the Windows taskbar, click the gear icon and Pause sync. The teams at Nixxes and Naughty Dog are keeping a close eye on player feedback and crash reports and are working on additional updates with more bug fixes and improvements. Thank you all for playing The Last of Us Part II on PC and sharing your feedback with us!

Remedy Entertainment Updates Control Ultimate Edition - Adds New Ultra Ray Tracing Preset, HDR Support & more

Hello Director! We're happy to announce that all owners of will be receiving a free content update. The update is hitting PC players (Steam and Epic Games Store, GOG to follow later) today, including several improvements to support newer hardware. In the near future we will release this same update for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms. We have a small team working on these updates so we want to space them out to give us time to fix potential issues that might come up. We appreciate your patience! Keep an eye on our social channels for the exact date and time, as well as update notes.

Control Ultimate Edition contains the main game and all previously released Expansions ("The Foundation" and "AWE") in one great value package. A corruptive presence has invaded the Federal Bureau of Control…Only you have the power to stop it. The world is now your weapon in an epic fight to annihilate an ominous enemy through deep and unpredictable environments. Containment has failed, humanity is at stake. Will you regain control?

Firaxis Unveils March Civilization VII Update 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 Details, as Well as Upcoming Features

Greetings, Civ fans! Since launch, the team at Firaxis Games has been working quickly to address key areas of Civilization VII that we've prioritized and identified with the community's feedback and our own teams. Today, we wanted to provide a high-level overview of what you can expect in the next updates for Civilization VII.

Next Update Coming March 4
The next update for Civilization VII, Update 1.1.0, is coming on March 4, 2025, and will be deployed across PC & console. Cross-play between PC and consoles will be re-enabled with the deployment of this update. Please note: Update 1.1.0 release timing may differ on Nintendo Switch.

Baldur's Gate 3 Local Co-op Mode Working on Xbox Series S, via Patch 8 Stress Test

Hello gang! We heard you like Baldur's Gate 3 and breaking things. Well, we have good news for you: The Patch 8 Stress Test is now live and available to all Xbox Insiders who own the game! Not into breaking things but still want to know what this is all about? Read to the end to find out what's coming in Patch 8.

Patch 8 Stress Test
The final major patch for Baldur's Gate 3 is right around the corner, but with an update so packed full of bug fixes, new features, and additions, we're enlisting your help to go beyond our internal testing and help us catch things before release. Patch 8 is bringing cross-play to Baldur's Gate 3, allowing players on all platforms to join each other in multiplayer sessions! So grab your friends on other platforms and get ready to fight… over who will romance each companion.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is Steam Deck Verified

We're happy to share that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is Steam Deck Verified! Experience two playable Spider-Men, traverse an expanded Marvel's New York and battle iconic Marvel Super Villains on your handheld device now! Be Greater. Together. The incredible power of the symbiote forces Peter Parker and Miles Morales into a desperate fight as they balance their lives, friendships, and their duty to protect in an exciting chapter of the critically acclaimed Spider-Man franchise on PC.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 PC—Patch 3 Release Notes
Patch 3 is available now for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on PC! This week's update includes stability improvements and bug fixes based on player feedback. We've also implemented the latest version of the NVIDIA Streamline SDK and included dozens of small visual bug fixes related to various aspects such as reflections, ray-traced shadows and textures. We are actively working on more updates with additional bug fixes and performance optimizations. Thank you to everyone for playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on PC and for providing feedback to help us continue to improve the game!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2's "Major Patch 1.2" Brings 1700+ Improvements & Fixes

Stalkers! Major Patch 1.2 is here! We are ready to present you Patch 1.2. A massive one, with over 1700 improvements and fixes to all aspects of the game: balance, locations, quests, blockers, crashes, performance, more A-Life 2.0 fixes, you name it. This work wouldn't have been possible without your feedback and comments on your personal experience with the Zone, thanks for sharing it here on Steam, Reddit, Discord, and other socials.

Thanks for staying with the Zone! As always, we will continue to listen to your feedback and comments, and share game updates as soon as possible. If you spot an "anomaly" that is not supposed to be in the game, please report it to our colleagues in Tech Support Hub. That will help us investigate potential issues faster.

The Last of Us Part I Updated with Support for FSR 3.1

The Last of Us Part I (PC version) was updated to version 1.1.4 last Friday—at the time, patch notes revealed that Iron Galaxy Studios/Nixxes Software had added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 3.1 Super Resolution and FSR 3.1 Frame Generation. Several popular first-party PlayStation titles received similar updates mid-way through last year, so industry watchdogs have questioned the timing of this latest upgrade—up until late last week, The Last of Us Part I was ticking along with support for FSR 3.0 (super resolution and frame generation).

Naturally, Team Red is in the process of preparing FSR 4.0 for an upcoming product launch—now delayed, due to the engineering team requiring: "extra time to optimize the software stack for maximum performance and enable more titles." AMD's latest graphics technology was showcased at CES earlier this month, alongside their new (RDNA 4) Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 (non-XT) graphics cards. According to Team Red, it is relatively easy to go from version 3.1 up to 4.0. The Last of Us Part I's development team (for PC platforms) could have everything ready to go in a couple of weeks, and be prepared well in advance for the game's sequel (due in April).

Cyberpunk 2077 Gets DLSS 4 Support With Patch 2.21. All RTX Users Can Try the New Transformers DLSS Model

CD Projekt RED has released the latest Patch 2.21 for Cyberpunk 2077, which is available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The new patch brings various fixes on all platforms, but also adds support for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards.

According to details provided in the release notes, the feature "boosts FPS by using AI to generate up to three times per traditionally rendered frame." It also introduces faster single Frame Generation which should bring reduced memory usage on RTX 50 and RTX 40 Series graphics cards. The patch also adds an option to choose between the CNN model or the new Transformer model for DLSS Ray Reconstruction, DLSS Super Resolution, and DLAA on all NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards. According to CD Projekt RED, the new Transformer model should enhance stability, lighting, and detail in motion.

XDefiant Signs Off With Assassin's Creed-Flavored Bang, Delivers 13 New Maps and Plenty of New Content in Final Patch

Ubisoft announced earlier this month that it would be sunsetting its free-to-play first-person shooter, XDefiant, on June 3, 2025, after dwindling player counts made it unfeasible to continue supporting the live-service game. Despite the game being shut down by Ubisoft, the game's development team at Ubisoft San Francisco apparently still wanted to follow through with some of the content it had in the game's pipeline. In an announcement on X, the game's executive producer clarifies that much of the content that is being delivered in what he calls the last patch contains all the content that was planned for Season 3 along with some content from future seasons of the game, including Season 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Some major highlights in the new patch, are 13 new maps, three new factions, including the Assassins—from Assassin's Creed—six new weapons, and five new game modes. Along with the slew of new content, XDefiant received a handful of gameplay and QoL fixes for both competitive and casual play. The new maps consist of eight new arena maps, four new linear maps, and one new tactical map. XDefiant also got a new progression system that allows players to unlock cosmetics, badges, and other rewards for character progression. The developer also introduced daily rewards and "Credits," the game's new in-game currency that allows players to buy skins and other items from previous seasons.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Gets New Patch 2 Update

Bethesda has released the big Update 2 for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game with additional fixes, including the big fix where the Game Slot appears damaged or completely missing, as this issue was apparently plaguing many users. Update 2 also reduces stutter from duplicated frames during cutscenes, as well as fixes to prevent "double vision" getting stuck on screen when Indy has almost drowned.

There are also several PC specific fixes including the one for where NVIDIA Frame Generation wasn't activated properly with HDR, a fix for NVIDIA Low Latency Mode performance issues when used with Frame Generation, a fix for global illumination being completely disabled on graphics cards below minimum VRAM requirement, issues with Lighting when Path Tracing is set to Medium or High Quality, and more. The Update 2 should also fix major performance issues when NVIDIA DLSS is enabled. There are several gameplay fixes which you can check out below. All of these NVIDIA-specific issues are still somewhat present and some users over at Reddit are still experiencing issues. Some users are reporting several workarounds, including a clean installation of drivers, or enabling and disabling Frame Generation, DLSS, HDR, and other settings.

Linux Kernel Patch Fixes Minutes-Long Boot Times on AMD "Zen 1" and "Zen 2" Processors

A significant fix has been submitted to the Linux kernel 6.13-rc1 that addresses prolonged boot times affecting older AMD processors, specifically targeting "Zen 1" and "Zen 2" architectures. The issue, which has been present for approximately 18 months, could cause boot delays ranging from several seconds to multiple minutes in extreme cases. The problem was discovered by a Nokia engineer who reported inconsistent boot delays across multiple AMD EPYC servers. The most severe instances showed the initial unpacking process taking several minutes longer than expected, though not all boots were affected. Investigation revealed that the root cause stemmed from a kernel modification implemented in June 2023, specifically related to CPU microcode update handling.

The technical issue was identified as a missing step in the boot process: Zen 1 and Zen 2 processors require the patch buffer mapping to be flushed from the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) after applying CPU microcode updates during startup. The fix, submitted as part of the "x86/urgent" material ahead of the Linux 6.13-rc1 release, implements the necessary TLB flush for affected AMD Ryzen and EPYC systems. This addition eliminates what developers described as "unnecessary and unnatural delays" in the boot process. While the solution will be included in the upcoming Linux 6.13 kernel release, plans are in place to back-port the fix to stable kernel versions to help cover most Linux users on older Zen architectures.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Gets New Title Update 3

BioWare has released the new Title Update 3 for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, fixing some bug issues and bringing some "quality of life" changes. Unfortunately, it does not bring any major graphics or performance improvements, so hopefully those will have to wait for the new update.

According to the changelog, the new update fixes several quest issues, issues where enemies and companions could get stuck, issues seen with the Skill Tree nodes, and various other crashes. The update also fixes several "pop-in" issues, camera stutter issues, and extremely bright VFX issues, but do not expect any major graphics or performance improvements.

Intel Working on Fixing "Arrow Lake" Gaming Performance with Upcoming Patches

In an exclusive interview with Hot Hardware, Intel acknowledged that its recently launched Core Ultra 200 desktop processors, codenamed "Arrow Lake," have significant performance issues. However, Intel announced that a set of fixes are being developed. As our review confirmed, the launch of these new processors fell short of both consumer expectations and Intel's own projections, particularly in gaming performance, despite showing promise in productivity, content creation, and some AI workloads. In a discussion during a recent livestream, Intel's Robert Hallock, VP and general manager of client AI and technical marketing, addressed these concerns head-on, describing the Arrow Lake launch as "disastrous" and attributing the underwhelming performance to inadequately optimized systems.
Robert HallockI can't go into all the details yet, but we identified a series of multifactor issues at the OS level, at the BIOS level, and I will say that the performance we saw in reviews is not what we expected and not what we intended. The launch just didn't go as planned. That has been a humbling lesson for all of us, inspiring a fairly large response internally to get to the bottom of what happened and to fix it.

Valve Addresses Rampant Cheaters in Deadlock With Unorthodox 'Frog Anti-Cheat' in Latest Update

Valve's latest third-person MOBA-like hero shooter, Deadlock, has had a pretty serious cheater problem, despite still being an invite-only public test. While the game has thus far operated on a player reporting system to identify and punish cheaters, a recent game patch has introduced a rather comical—and seemingly effective—anti-cheat system that can either ban cheating players or turn them into frogs until the end of the match.

Valve says that the new anti-cheat system is set up to be fairly conservative at the moment to avoid any false positives. Aside from the new anti-cheat, Deadlock's September 26 update introduced a new hero, Mirage, whose design and gameplay seem rooted in the jinn from Arabic myths (aka djinn or genie) and added a pretty vast collection of gameplay updates, balances, and quality-of-life improvements throughout the game.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Zen 5 CPUs Set for Power Boost, AGESA Update Increasing TDP up to 105W

Recent reports suggest that AMD's Zen 5 desktop processors may soon receive a significant power upgrade. The upcoming AGESA 1.2.0.1A Patch A is rumored to increase the default power limits (TDP) from 65 W to 105 W for certain models, specifically the 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X and the 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X. This development comes as a surprise given that the first reviews of the Ryzen 9000 series were published just last week, with lower power consumption praised as a major advantage over previous generations. The potential TDP increase, while not as high as the 120 W initially rumored for the 9700X, still represents a substantial boost in power allocation.

The rationale behind this significant TDP increase appears to be addressing the lower than expected performance of the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X compared to their predecessors. Initial testing showed that both CPUs performed similarly to earlier models, especially in gaming scenarios, with notable improvements only visible when using Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). Even at 65 W, the Ryzen 7 9700X struggled to outpace the 7800X3D in gaming performance, highlighting the need for improved power delivery.
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