Wednesday is back and that means its time for Gaming News. Nvidia has a new GPU driver out this week, Cities XL 2012 is the Midweek Madness sale, Alan Wake has made its money back in 48 hours, is SLi broken in Alan Wake? LAN support has been confirmed for DOTA 2 and Gaming Nights are back! Update that tired old computer, Gaming News is ready!
Written By: Skyler
Nvidia released a new driver yesterday which included in following updates.
R295 Highlight Summary
New features and performance since last WHQL-certified driver
- Game-changing performance boost of up to 45% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “the fastest selling title in Steam’s history”
- Up to 2x performance Mass Effect 3 with SLI technology.
- GeForce-exclusive quality enhancements with ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Diablo III, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
- New 3D Vision and SLI profiles for over 50 titles.
- New PhysX software for the best experience in top PhysX titles like Alice: Madness Returns andBatman: Arkham City.
R295 Highlight Details
Performance
- Increases performance by up to 45% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (measured with GeForce GTX 560 at 1080p Ultra settings in indoor scenes vs. 285.62).
- Updates the NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to a higher performance profile.
- Boosts Mass Effect 3 SLI performance to up to 2x.
Ambient Occlusion
- Adds ambient occlusion support for Diablo III. See the comparison screenshots on GeForce.com.
- Updates the ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to a higher performance profile (also in 290 beta drivers). See the comparison screenshots on GeForce.com.
- Adds ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (also in 290 beta drivers). See thecomparison screenshots on GeForce.com.
You can download them here.
Cities XL 2012
Like building cities? What about recking them? Then the Cities franchise is for you. I have been playing this games for the last two years and they are a blast. You can pick up 2012 for $10 on Steam for a savings of 75%. As always, the Midweek Madness sale ends on Thursday at 7pm EST.
Alan Wake
After last weeks Gaming News it seems people wanted to play Alan Wake. An article over on Kotaku explains that Remedy has already made their money back from the Xbox 360 port. On the not so shiny side of things, SLi is broken in the game. There are some work arounds out there but I like to stick with official ways to fix the game. Nvidia has said that they are working on it and it shouldn’t be too long. With all settings maxed in the game and a resolution of 2560x1600 the game was struggling to push 30fps. So let that warn you about what to expect performance wise on your rig. The game should run fine on a 1080p monitor but just don’t get crazy on the AA and AF. I will shoot up a PSA when Nvidia releases a SLi profile for Alan Wake.
DOTA 2
Great news DOTA 2 players. LAN support has been confirmed. When speaking with joinDota.com Valve’s Market Director of Operations Erik Johnson confirmed that DOTA will have LAN support. You can read the whole interview here.
LanOC Gaming Nights
I am proud to announce that LanOC Gaming Nights are back! We had a great time this last Friday playing COD:MW3. Over 20 people came out to show their support of LanOC and get in some game time. The next date hasn’t been set yet but we are working on it. I am thinking that once or twice a month is more than enough. People have lives and are always busy with something. So if I can do it twice a month you won’t miss out if you miss one. Right now I am gauging interest in what day would work best. Check out this thread and cast your vote for what day works best for you.
I would like clear something up right away. We will not be playing the same games. We have already done MW3 so that is out for awhile. Nothing is out of the question so I will have another thread up in a days gauging interest in what the next game should be. This will also be posted in the LanOC Steam Group, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ so you have no excuse for missing out. Also, please install Ventrillo. It is the default LanOC chat program. Make sure you test your headset out before the Game Night so we don’t have to troubleshoot on the fly. We are more than willing to help out, but let us do it before hand. Our Ventrillo info can be found here
Left Field:
There wasn’t a bunch of news this week other than some small tid bits.
Looks like Kim Dotcom was released on bail. Should be an interesting extradition hearing in March.
Interesting article over at PCPer discussing NAND Flash Memory for their storage guru Allyn Malventano.
Anyone that uses Steam always gets a kick when Gabe opens his mouth. This is a great read over on Penny Arcade.
Need some more HD 7770 results? Check out our Editor-in-Chief’s look at the Crossfire results.
Barnes & Noble is heading in the right direction with their new $199 Nook Tablet. Glad to see them moving things forward. Hopefully the members over on XDA will hack the hell outta this thing and get ICS on it.
Not one to talk about movies but I know on Friday I’ll be in theaters checking out Act of Valor. For some reason that flick looks bad ass.
Has anyone else seen the L4D Minecraft level? That would be fun to goof around in. Need to find out where I can download that at.
That’s it for this weeks edition of Gaming News. The staff is working hard trying to get a bunch of stuff ready for the coming months. Hopefully we can find some time to get some game time in. Until next week.
Wingless is out!
