The Epic Game Store is probably the first major threat to Valve’s total dominance over the PC gaming sphere in a decade or so. While the Epic Game Store client lacks a whole lot of basic functionality (or consumer standard features), Epic has been aggressively working to solicit developers, and through them, customers.

Epic’s strategy has involved an aggressive revenue sharing arrangement with developers, which makes the Epic Games Store more alluring versus Steam (or any other storefront, really), as well as the poaching of multiple high profile third party games as exclusive to their storefront. Going forward, Epic’s Tim Sweeney sees these revenue sharing arrangements and exclusivity arrangements as the way for the Epic Game Store to gain ground against Steam—because Steam is already so “perfect” in terms of user facing features that adding some smaller irrelevant ones on top won’t make people switch.

“We’re giving game developers and publishers the store business model that we’ve always wanted as developers ourselves,” said Sweeney to MCV UK.

“[Steam is] nearly perfect for consumers already… There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing,” Sweeney added.

As long as Epic doesn’t slack on offering consumer facing features, I don’t think anyone cares how they choose to attract developers. Nonetheless, one can hope that Epic will feel it is on solid enough grounding soon enough that it won’t see the need to resort to console-style exclusivity shenanigans.

Next week promises to be a big one for video games, with many long awaited titles such as Mega Man 11, Forza Horizon 4, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey due to launch then. Of these, we know that Odyssey and Forza Horizon 4 are technical masterpieces, and games that PC gamers who play them will surely want looking as great as possible.

Which means, if you are on an Nvidia GPU, you probably want to download the 411.70 WHQL driver update. That update adds game ready drivers for both of these titles, alongside optimized support for FIFA 19, and support for the new RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti graphic cards. So, you know, download this. Especially if you are planning on playing any of these games, or have any of these GPUs, in question.

As is always the case, you can check out the full patch notes for this new update for yourself below, and you can also download it for yourself here.

NVIDIA GeForce 411.70 WHQL Release Notes

Game Ready

Provides the optimal gaming experience for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Forza Horizon 4, and FIFA 19.

Gaming Technology

Includes support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards.

New Features

• Added support for CUDA 10.0
• NVIDIA RTXTM Technology
  NVIDIA RTX supports the Microsoft DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API on NVIDIA Volta and Turing GPUs.
  In order to get started with developing DirectX Raytracing applications accelerated by RTX, you’ll need the following:
  • NVIDIA Volta or Turing GPU
  • Windows 10 RS4
  • Microsoft’s DXR developer package, consisting of DXR-enabled D3D runtimes, HLSL compiler, and headers
• Vulkan 1.1
  • This driver release provides full support for the new Vulkan 1.1 API and passes the Vulkan Conformance Test Suite (CTS) version 1.1.1.2.
  • Includes interoperability with CUDA 10.0.
  • New extensions for Turing GPUs:
  -VK_NVX_raytracing (also available for Pascal GPUs with 8GB or more video
  memory, and Volta GPUs)
  -VK_NV_compute_shader_derivatives
  -VK_NV_corner_sampled_image
  -VK_NV_fragment_shader_barycentric
  -VK_NV_mesh_shader
  -VK_NV_representative_fragment_test
  -VK_NV_scissor_exclusive
  -VK_NV_shader_image_footprint
  -VK_NV_shading_rate_image
• Vulkan HDR for Windows
  This driver release supports the Vulkan VK_EXT_swapchain_colorspace and VK_EXT_hdr_metadata extensions allowing applications to output HDR content to HDR displays via the Vulkan APIs.
• OpenGL extensions for Turing GPUs
  • GL_NV_compute_shader_derivatives
  • GL_NV_fragment_shader_barycentric
  • GL_NV_mesh_shader
  • GL_NV_representative_fragment_test
  • GL_NV_scissor_exclusive
  • GL_NV_shading_rate_image
  • GL_NV_shader_texture_footprint
• NVIDIA Control Panel
  System Info shows Boost Clock values (instead of Base Clock) for Turing and later GPUs.

Application SLI Profiles
Added or updated the following SLI profiles:

• HOB
• Lake Ridden
• NieR:Automata
• Northgard
• Pure Farming 2018
• Raid: World War II
• Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017)
• TT Isle of Man

3D Vision Profiles
Added or updated the following 3D Vision profiles:

• Elder Scrolls: Online – Good
• Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey – Not recommended

Fixed Issues

• Using power monitoring in GPU monitor tools causes micro stutter. [2110289/2049879]
• [Monster Hunter World]: Low frame rate in the game. [2335958]
• [Tom Clancy’s The Division]: Graphics corruption occurs when using NVIDIA Gameworks settings. [2005096]
• [Call of duty WW II ][1×3 Surround]: The center Surround display renders black screen. [200370257]
• [Planetside 2][G-SYNC]: G-SYNC does not work with the game. [2221050]
• [ARCHICAD][OpenGL]: The OpenGL driver crashes the application. [2093819]
• [GeForce GTX 1080Ti]: Random DPC watchdog violation error when using multiple GPUs on motherboards with PLX chips. [2079538]
• [YouTube][Mosaic with Sync]: Secondary GPU doesn’t render video content on fullscreen YouTube video. [200402117]

The popular PC chat program Discord is going to grow– it will now not only be the one stop chat solution that PC (and sometimes even console!) gamers use to stay in touch and voice chat, but also be a storefront and launcher for selling PC games. However, there’s going to be a difference between how Discord tackles selling games and how Steam does it. Unlike Steam, which will now let literally anything on to the store, Discord will have a much more curated selection, likened to a boutique bookstore, where a more limited selection of games is sold, with full recommendations from the Discord team.

Discord will also, as part of this effort, launch “First on Discord”, which will be indie games that launch with 90 days of timed exclusivity to Discord- a good way for those indie games to get the visibility they can’t on crowded storefronts like Steam, and for Discord to induce users to invest in their ecosystem. Finally, Discord will start allowing the chat to be an overlay (so you can access it while playing), while also allowing you to use Discord as a universal launcher (so you can launch non-Discord games from it as well).

It sounds like a bold initiative- and I am honestly excited to see how it all plays out. If anyone can actually give Steam any competition, it’s Discord, with 150 million active users, a lot of goodwill from the community, and people who like using it. Let’s see how it all plays out.

If you are someone who is still primarily on a Windows XP or Windows Vista PC (… in 2018, for whatever reason), you might want to upgrade your OS by the year’s end, especially if you have a substantial library of Steam games.

Valve has announced that it will be dropping support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in 2019- which not only means that the client will no longer support those operating systems, but also that your Steam games will not be playable on them at all. Which is kind of a shame, since many games only work well on Windows XP.

The reason Valve cites for this move is newer features in Steam relying on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which in turn also does not support anything lower than Windows 7.

Now, I get the distaste of locking people out of their libraries unless their operating systems are upgraded (especially since game preservation and continuity are often cited as benefits of PC gaming), but on the other hand- seriously. If you’re still on Windows XP or Vista, please upgrade. They’re super old, and super susceptible to virus attacks and security exploits.

People have ben waiting for Nvidia to come out and announce its next set of GPUs for a while now. But owing to a series of extenuating factors, not the least of which is the sudden and abrupt demand for high end GPUs last year because of the sudden interest in BitCoin and crypto-currency mining (which led to shortages not just of the GPUs themselves, but were also accompanied by a global shortage of memory chips, leading to further spikes), the wait has been long.

Now, at last, said wait may be coming to an end. Nvidia has announced a GeForce event for August 20 (one day before Gamescom). The event references “the latest Nvidia hardware”, as well as “some spectacular surprises”. That’s all we get, but I suppose it’s enough to set tongues wagging and expectations soaring- at this point, even a modest and incremental bump would probably be enough for a lot of PC gamers. Or maybe it will be the leaked GTX 1180.

Whatever it is, we will find out on August 20. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

EA has confirmed that Origin Access Premier, the premium unlimited PC gaming subscription service that the company announced last month at E3, while proselytizing about “the joys of subscription”, will finally be rolling out next week. Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said during the company’s quarterly earnings call that the service is due to roll out next week, and that it will cost $15 a month, or $99 a year.

So what do you get for that at first glance really high asking price, you might ask? Actually, as it turns out, for once, EA is pricing things well, and offering good value to the customer. The big thing here is that, like with Origin Access, subscribers get access to every EA game before launch- but unlike with Origin Access, this isn’t just a trial version, it’s the full thing. Essentially, you get to play every single game EA launches via the service, before it officially releases.

It’s actually seemingly better value than something like the original Origin Access seems to be in comparison- and with anticipated upcoming games like Battlefield 5 and FIFA 19, EA may see a fair few people take them up on this subscription service, too.

A full list of some upcoming EA games, with the dates they can be played on Origin Access Premium, can be found below:

• Madden NFL 19: Aug. 2 (public launch: Aug. 10)
• FIFA 19: Sept. 20 (public launch: Sept. 28)
• Battlefield 5: Oct. 11 (public launch: Oct. 19)
• Anthem: Feb. 15, 2019 (public launch: Feb. 22, 2019)

It looks like Valve is cracking down on cheaters on Steam immensely. GameZone reports that Valve has banned a total of 121,496 accounts under Valve Anti Cheat (VAC) this month- and there are still eight days to go before the month is up! So the number could actually well end up going up.

61,437 of those bans were issued on July 19 alone. An explanation propounded by GameZone for this abnormally high number of bans is that people bought games like Counter Strike during the Steam Sale (which ended earlier this month), and many then proceeded to cheat, triggering a new, massive wave of bans- which certainly sounds like a plausible explanation to me.

As a reminder, VAC bans are different from regular Steam bans. These bans are permanent, non-negotiable, and under no circumstances can they be reversed. If you are caught with a VAC ban, you could lose access to any purchases you made within your games, such as skins, hats, and the like.

The long and short of it is- stop cheating.

Taking on the excellent ergonomic form and asymmetric analog layout from the Xbox One controller, and adding NFC support, gyroscopic aiming and movement, and high quality vibration via HD Rumble, the Nintendo Switch Pro controller is arguably the best controller of the generation- maybe ever. And now, PC gamers who want to play their games using the Switch Pro controller will be able to with ease, thanks to Valve adding support for the controller officially- at least in beta.

Given that it is still in beta, you will need to opt into the Steam Client Beta to be able to use it for now. Once you do, you can enable support globally by checking the ‘Nintendo Switch Configuration Support’ option in the Controller Settings page. Valve has even enabled support for Nintendo’s button layout- on a Nintendo controller, A/B and X/Y positions are swapped compared to their (or their corresponding buttons’) positions on the Xbox One controller or the DualShock 4. That feature should, especially, come in handy.

So… yes. You can now play shooters on your PC using the superior controller form factor, with gyroscopic controls enabled! Truly, this is the best of all worlds.

So, if you’ve tried to assemble your own PC any time recently, you know that prices of things like memory and GPUs have gone ridiculously high. This isn’t the usual state of things- it is happening right now because cryptominers are buying these products, including NVIDIA GPUs, to mine bitcoins, leading to a shortage of products on the market, in turn driving up demand and price.

The situation has become so bad- we’re talking GTX 1080s selling at over $1,000 apiece here- that NVIDIA has been forced to issue an advisory to retailers, asking them to sell to “gamers, not cryptominers” in Europe, and encouraging them to limit sales of products to two per customers- cryptominers usually buy a whole lot of these in a bunch.

It sounds like a fair response, but it also beggars the question of just how practical this advice is, and whether or not it will actually end up bringing the situation under control.

[Computerbase via Hot Hardware]

Assassin’s Creed Origins launched two months ago, but for PC players, at least, a major issue that the game suffers from has gone unaddressed all this while. Specifically, PC owners with CPUs that lack SSE 4.1 or 4.2 support find they can still not play this game at all.

To be fair, this is an issue that affects other popular games, like Destiny 2– however, while developers of those games have attempted to address the problem, it seems like Ubisoft is unwilling to. As reported by DSOGaming, according to a chat with customer service that a player had, Ubisoft’s stance is that a PC with such a CPU is below the minimum requirements for running the game that Ubisoft mandates. Apparently, this is an issue endemic to games that use Denuvo- but there have been other games on PC using Denuvo that have had support for these CPUs patched in over time. Ubisoft’s reticence in this matter is truly baffling.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is out now on Xbox One and PS4 in addition to on PC.