Month: February 2019

tannenberg-1914-1918Bulgarian troops join the fray, and wolves are at the door…

Blackmill Games and M2H have just released their WW1 shooter Tannenberg on Steam. The second entry in the WW1 Game Series surprises the community with new content and reveals a historical event in early Spring!

Bulgarian forces join the Central Powers in the authentic WW1 FPS, bringing a new map and new weapons to the Eastern Front. Watch the Tannenberg feature trailer HERE.

Players can get Tannenberg now on Steam with a 15% discount – or a 25% loyalty discount if they already own Verdun, the first game in the series.

Bulgaria enters the battle for Dobrudja!

The trailer shows Bulgaria joining the fight, and they bring a batch of new equipment with them! New firearms include the Berdan II rifle – a Russian designed weapon that the Bulgarians would use against them in WW1. Not all new weapons added with the release are in Bulgarian hands – for instance Russian and German troops see new grenades, while the Roumanians gain access to the British designed Martini-Henry rifle. Although it first saw action in 1871, it was still effective enough to be used when supplies of other weapons were short.

The new Dobrudja map will see players do battle with a view of the Danube river, as they attempt to seize control of key hilltop fortifications while holding off flanking attacks through the valley trenches below! Combined with the other maps already in the game, it means that players can now fight over territory representing battlefields from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea!

Co-founder Mike Hergaarden says: “Inspired by the Dobrudja region, the new map showcases our commitment to creating authentic locations. We’ve done careful research to create something which reflects the challenges that soldiers on the Eastern Front would have faced.” Other battlefields in Tannenberg include a small village on the flat plains of Poland, a damaged armoured train in a hilly region of Galicia, a church at the centre of a valley in the Carpathians, and fortified Mount Cosna in Roumania.

This last iconic battlefield was added alongside a Roumanian squad following a vote asking players if they wanted to see Roumanian or Bulgarian troops added to the game. However the result was a close one… so the developers decided to add Bulgaria as well! The community has been great during Early Access, and in addition to the two new factions, recent months leading up the release have seen a flurry of other updates in response to their feedback. In particular the sectors, squads and roles within them are now even more distinctive. Pick the Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. or Russian Frontovik squads for long range rifles and heavy artillery support, Cossacks or German Infanterie for melee assaults and taking ground, or the Roumanian and Bulgarians to hold key sectors against enemy counter-attacks. Support call-ins have been further balanced, with options including gas, artillery, smoke, and recon planes.

Wolves at the door…

There has been a range of historical events hosted in Tannenberg and predecessor Verdun, from the Christmas Truce and Remembrance Day to player organized reenactments. The developers have announced a new event for Spring, based on a lesser known truce reported by an American newspaper… the ‘wolf truce’. The paper described Russian and German soldiers forced to hold a temporary ceasefire by huge packs of ravenous, starving wolves. Although there may be more than a little exaggeration in the story, it makes for an interesting what-if scenario, and during the upcoming event when the wolves start howling, players will need to decide whether or not to hold a ceasefire of their own…

Find out more about Tannenberg on the games official website.

 

battlefield-5By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ Guru3D

As we reported first on Monday, a Battlefield V Patch would be pending, offering NVIDIA DLSS Support for GeForce RTX graphics cards. EA and DICE just issued the patch and that will enable DLSS, and some more.

DLSS requires Tensor cores, ergo you need an RTX based graphics card for the feature to work. DICE mentioned DLSS as a feature “which uses deep learning to improve game performance while maintaining visual quality.” More tweaks have been made like support for ultrawide monitors on the PC, particularly with the “Rotterdam” map.

If you own an RTX card, the patch will auto install. We recommend you to install the new GeForce 418.91 WHQL drivers (download) which supports DLSS, actually, it is a mandatory install for it to work. I’ve quickly ran some numbers. On our GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with today’s released driver DLSS would not enable. After switching towards GeForce RTX 2080, it did kick in, but only at Quad HD and Ultra HD. At Full HD, the feature disabled itself. The default BF-V TAA seems to get automatically disabled once you select DLSS.

Guru3D has written a Battlefield V: DLSS PC Performance article in which they check out the benefits and disadvantages of what is called AI AA in this small first update with Battlefield V.

Battlefield V First-Person Shooters | Donster | |

amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-2019Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has made available the latest version of their Radeon software drivers, Adrenalin Edition 19.2.2, for supported graphics solutions. This brings with it support for the recently released Radeon VII graphics card, in addition to equally new and upcoming game titles including Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, the Civ VI: Gathering Storm expansion, and Crackdown 3. More pleasing to many users no doubt will be the large list of fixed issues, including a timely Alt + Tab shortcut on a DisplayPort monitor and plenty of bug fixes related to Radeon Wattman as it pertains to the Radeon VII.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.2 beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Hardware Video Cards | Donster | |

nvidia-geforce-logoSource: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA has released the latest version of GeForce desktop software. Version 418.91 WHQL adds day-one optimization for “Metro Exodus,” including the game’s RTX support. It also adds support for DLSS in both “Battlefield V” and “Metro Exodus.” This last part is crucial because DLSS requires a lot of pre-processed “ground truth” data from NVIDIA to work, which are shipped in driver updates like these. The drivers also fix a wide range of issues related to G-SYNC, “Apex Legends,” display corruption on “Hitman 2,” and “ARK Survival.”

You can download the new GeForce 418.91 WHQL drivers through GeForce Experience or via GeForce.com.

Hardware Video Cards | Donster | |

Play for free between February 14-18, save up to 66% on the game and DLC

This Thursday February 14 until Monday February 18 (starting and ending at 19:00 CET/18:00 GMT/10:00 PST), players from all over the world will be able to get some action with the Arma 3 Free Weekend on Steam. Additionally, Arma 3 and all Arma 3 DLC packs (including the Arma Apex expansion) will be on sale with discounts ranging from 20-66% for the duration of the Free Weekend.

The Free Weekend gives Steam users access to the entire Arma 3 base game plus the Arma 3 Apex expansion content. This includes 50+ weapons, 30+ vehicles, 4 massive terrains with a combined landmass of 450 km2, a singleplayer and co-op campaign, individual showcase scenarios, a tutorial prologue campaign, training courses, a variety of multiplayer game modes (including the recently introduced Warlords mode), and the powerful 3D Scenario Editor. Free Weekend participants will be able to carry over all of their save games and Steam Achievements when they decide to purchase the game.

Besides the official game content, players can also make use of the wealth of free community-made content, including the 55,000+ items shared on the Arma 3 Steam Workshop. These items contain additional weapons, vehicles, gear, terrains, missions, multiplayer game modes, and much more. Some of the most popular Workshop items of all-time include the RHS Russian Armed Forces and United States Armed Forces add-on packs, the Halo-inspired Operation: TREBUCHET total conversion, the CUP ports of terrains from previous Arma games, and the original PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battle Royale.

For more information about Arma 3, please visit the games official website.

Arma 3 First-Person Shooters | Donster | |

tom-clancys-the-division-2Today, following the private beta that completed this past weekend, Ubisoft® announced that the Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Open Beta will run from March 1 through March 4 on the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X, PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. More details will be released soon. For the latest news about the Open Beta, please visit: www.thedivisiongame.com/beta.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 releases worldwide on March 15, 2019, across Xbox One devices, including the Xbox One X, PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. Led by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with seven other studios around the world, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is the next evolution in the open-world online shooter RPG genre that the first game helped establish. Set seven months after a deadly virus was released in New York City, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will bring players into a fractured and collapsing Washington D.C. The world is on the brink, with its people living through the biggest crisis ever faced in human history. As veteran Division agents, players are the last hope against the complete fall of society as enemy factions vie for control of the city. If Washington D.C. is lost, the entire nation falls. Building upon more than two years of listening to and learnings from The Division community, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will offer a substantial campaign that organically flows into a robust endgame, to create a cohesive and meaningful experience for all types of players.

More game information can be found on the official Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 website.

RPG Tom Clancy's The Division 2 | Donster | |

inno3d-ichill-rgb-ddr4-3600By Tarinder Sandhu @ HEXUS

The machinations of the PC component industry are interesting. Most companies that started off producing primarily DRAM have felt the need to branch out and diversify the business against the inherent fluctuations in the memory market. Corsair is the best example of this approach. Very few move into the RAM space from specialties in other products, yet graphics card stalwart Inno3D is doing exactly that with a line of premium iChiLL memory.

Read The Review Here

Hardware Memory | Donster | |
Hardware | Donster | |

historical-article-col-robert-l-scott-gods-pilotSon of the South Bob Scott was a rebel with a cause: helping the United States defeat the Japanese.

By Barrett Tillman @ Aviation History Magazine

In 1943 General Henry H. Arnold’s secretary buzzed his inner sanctum, informing the U.S. Army Air Forces chief, “Colonel Scott is here, sir.” “Hap” Arnold, who lived in a frequent boil, replied, “Oh, you mean God’s personal pilot?”

Colonel Robert L. Scott Jr., fighter ace and bestselling author of God Is My Co-pilot, was in trouble…again. He had just offered to strafe John L. Lewis, the mine workers’ union boss who had continually violated the wartime “no strike” pledge after Pearl Harbor. Called upon Arnold’s thick carpet, Scott said, “General, I was only expressing my personal opinion.”

Arnold came out of his chair, red-faced, finger jabbing. “Damn it, Scott! When you wear that uniform you don’t have a personal opinion!”

At McDill Field in Florida, Scott’s younger brother Roland was going through B-26 Ma­rauder training. His copilot noted the news reports and said, “Well, your brother’s never going to be a general now!”

Long after, Bob Scott quipped, “I think that’s when General Arnold began looking for a way to send me back to combat where I could get killed.”

Combat pilot, bestselling author, big game hunter, versatile chef and incomparable raconteur—Scott was all those and more. Reared in Macon, Ga., he was also among the last cavaliers of the Old South. He made his final flight west from Georgia on February 27, 2006.

Read on…

Military History | Donster | |

ace-combat-7-skies-unknownBy Rick Lane @ Bit-Tech

There’s something refreshingly straightforward about Ace Combat 7. At a time when almost every AAA game needs to be a an open, shared, hybrid single and multiplayer world that’s competitive but also team-based with persistently evolving gameplay, a compelling endgame and a drone that serves you drinks while you play, Ace Combat 7 is about Flying a Cool Plane and Blowing Stuff Up.

Read on…