“No Mission Too Difficult. No Sacrifice Too Great. Duty First!”

Matrix Games has announced that, after several months of hard work, Close Combat: The Bloody First is ready to go officially in Beta!

Developers have put a lot of effort into creating one of the most realistic tactical wargames ever, improving and refining the overall gameplay experience.

Now it’s your turn to duty! If you think you have what it takes, enlist here and help us in giving the final touches to the game!

IMPORTANT:

If you have applied in precedence for the Alpha, you don’t have to apply a second time as you have been automatically added to the Beta.

Close Combat: The Bloody First is the latest release in the critically-acclaimed Close Combat series, and the first using the new 3D Archon engine. With this Close Combat: The Bloody First combines classic Close Combat tactical gameplay with battles fought across a wide variety of diverse 3D landscapes including craggy ridgelines, narrow valleys and dense villages. The switch to 3D also allows an increase in the level of detail (e.g. the specific types of ammunition used by each weapon are now modeled) with more realistic movement and projectile physics.

Following the career of the famed US 1stInfantry Division (forever known as ‘The Big Red One’) Close Combat: The Bloody First visits the battlefields of Tunisia and Sicily for the first time, as well as covering the Normandy campaign. 

With 3 theatres to cover Close Combat: The Bloody First places the focus firmly on the tactical level putting you in command of a 1st Infantry Division company (sometimes reinforced … and sometimes not!), leading your men through a series of linked operations and battles from Longstop Hill in Tunisia to Mortain in Normandy. You’ll have to look after your men, work out the best combination of fire and movement, know when they need bolstering with armoured vehicles and decide when to call in support from artillery and aircraft.

Game developer Icebreaker Interactive is launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for development of their upcoming PC game Escalation 1985.

What would have happened if the cold war turned hot in 1985? The new first person shooter Escalation 1985 is offering a grand campaign spanning 5 European nations, locations such as Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie, and the soldiers of 9 armies, including the US Army and the British Army of the Rhine.

The crowdfunding campaign offers players in-game rewards of rare and forgotten weapons.

Backers can also write their own lines for their characters which will be recorded by a professional voice actor or get their own or someone else’s face in the game.

And finally on the highest tier a backer can get their very own real-life BRDM-2 amphibious armored vehicle (video) delivered to their door in the EU or USA. It comes freshly painted in mint-condition from the Czech Republic and is road legal in most places.

It’s fully amphibious and can swim at 10 km/h for 17 hours. You can have a party on a lake with this thing or make the school run very exciting.

About Escalation 1985:

Experience what an armed conflict would have been like between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in 1985. Escalation 1985 features massive 50 v 50 battles set in iconic areas surrounding the iron curtain. Use finely detailed weapons, vehicles, and equipment used by forces on either side. Work with your squad to defeat the enemy team and gain control before the nuclear Armageddon!

Using VoIP for radio and proximity communication along with a morale and stamina system the player will feel as if he is actually there, his weapon along with his avatar will be an actual part of the world. Moving, firing, being close to friendlies, enemies or tanks, will all have an impact on how you as a player will interact with the environment around you. Experience the horrors of Nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare with accurate recreations of these events.

Drive a tank with your friends. Our armor features intractable interiors that are precisely modeled from their real life counterparts. Engage enemy forces using detailed fire control systems and ballistics.

Use exquisitely modeled weapons systems, from rifles to anti-air systems. Accurate bullet and missile physics let you experience the true power of these weapons.

Find out more about Escalation 1985 HERE. Visit the games official website where you can view the reveal trailer, screenshots and more.

By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ Guru3D

Last Friday we’ve published the first round of GeForce 1660 Ti graphics cards. In that article, we’ve already hinted towards a non-Ti model as well. The chatter on that is now getting more substantial, we’ve also mentioned a possible GeForce GTX 1650 as well, here again, a possible launch date has surfaced.

Sources from Digitimes now state that NVIDIA is would be launching the GeForce GTX 1660 on March 15 and a GeForce GTX 1650 on around April 30th, which will bear minimum price tags of US$229 and US$179, respectively.

This will follow the firm’s release of two medium- and low-end versions in the first quarter of 2019, including RTX 2060 in mid-January at a minimum unit price of US$349 and GTX 1660 Ti in late February with a floor price of US$279. The four new graphics cards, ranging from US$179-349, are expected to bring heavy pricing pressure on AMD’s mid-tier and low-end offerings such as VEGA 64/65 and RX590/580/570. With the launch of the four products bearing high price-performance ratios, NVIDIA is apparently seeking to refocus its graphics card business on the medium- and low-end market in the first half of 2019 to prevent its profits from falling further and drive AMD’s share in the market down to under 25% or even 20%, industry sources commented. The drastic shrinkage in demand for crypto mining graphic cards seen since the second quarter of 2018 prompted Nvidia to fast reduce its inventory in the following months, minimizing the impact on profitability.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has released their latest Radeon Software Adrenaline 2019 Edition drivers. This latest beta, version 19.2.3, brings with it support for AMD Ryzen mobile processors with Vega graphics which see up to a 10% performance boost on average versus the 17.40 launch drivers. Titles included in the performance testing were; Destiny 2, Shadow of War, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Civilization 6, and the Witcher 3. Furthermore, various eSports title have seen performance gains of up to 17%, again when compared to the older 17.40 launch drivers. The games AMD used for testing were; Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, Player Unknown’s Battleground, and World of Warcraft. The only other performance gains specifically mentioned in this driver release is a 3% boost in Dirt Rally 2 on the Radeon RX Vega 64.

AMD has fixed a few issues with this release as well including player character outlines being stuck on screen after being revived in Battlefield V being the most significant fix. Otherwise, all other fixes or changes are related to AMD software or features such as ReLive wireless VR, FreeSync, and fan tuning. That said, a few prominent issues remain some of which have been around for some time like mouse lag on multi-monitor systems when one display is turned off. Other problems include Radeon WattMan not applying settings changes on the AMD Radeon VII. Meanwhile, the performance metrics overlay may fluctuate giving inaccurate readings on the previously mentioned Radeon VII.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.3 beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

New Sudden Strike 4 DLC adds new generals, missions and vehicles

Kalypso Media’s hit World War II real time tactics game, Sudden Strike 4, rages into the Pacific with The Pacific War DLC pack, is now available on GOG.com and Steam for PC, Linux, Mac, PlayStation®4 and Xbox One, priced at £14.99 / €19.99 / $19.99.

Along with introducing a new theatre of the conflict, The Pacific War DLC features ten missions set across two campaigns. Players will have access six new commanders including the Imperial Japanese Army’s Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Southern Expeditionary Army Group’s Hisaichi, Legendary five-star US general Douglas MacArthur and Chief of Staff Richard J. Marshall. Also included in The Pacific War DLC are 51 new vehicles, including amphibious vehicles for land and sea combat, massive controllable aircraft carriers to rule the skies, advanced air combat planes for vicious dog fights and devastating flamethrowers to eliminate ground combatants in spectacular fashion. A new gameplay trailer is available showing the DLC in action.

In addition, update 1.15 has also been released today for the main game, which introduces three new bonus missions completely free of charge. Read the full PC and console changelogs for all the details.

Powered by 12th-Gen Turing Architecture, GTX 1660 Ti up to 3x Faster Than GTX 960, 1.5x Than GTX 1060; Available Today

NVIDIA today introduced the GeForce® GTX® 1660 Ti, a new gaming GPU that delivers a big step up in performance and power efficiency for today’s most popular games. It is available now worldwide starting at $279.

Based on the 12th generation Turing™ GPU architecture, the GTX 1660 Ti takes advantage of all of Turing’s shader innovations to deliver 2x the TOPS of the previous-generation Pascal™ architecture. It supports concurrent floating point and integer operations, a unified cache architecture with 3x the L1 cache, and turbocharged performance using adaptive shading technology.

1.4x More Power Efficient Than Pascal

The Turing architecture delivers 1.5x instructions per clock and 1.4x the power efficiency of Pascal, which previously set the standard for power-efficient GPUs. As a result, with a power envelope of only 120 watts, the GTX 1660 Ti delivers the best performance per watt of any GPU in its class.

120 Frames per Second in Competitive Games

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti outperforms prior-generation GPUs and excels in modern games with complex shaders. It is up to 1.5x faster(1) than the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and allows gamers to experience 120 frames per second at 1080p in popular online games such as Fortnite, PUBG and Apex Legends.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti features 1,536 CUDA® cores, 6GB of the new GDDR6 memory running at 12Gbps and a boost clock of almost 1.8 GHz, which can be easily overclocked for further performance.

With more than two-thirds of current gamers still playing on GPUs that only have the performance — or lower — of a GTX 960-class GPU that came out in 2014, the GTX 1660 Ti delivers up to 3x performance, making it an excellent and cost-effective upgrade for those who want to enjoy dramatically faster frame rates in their favorite titles.

Availability and Pricing

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti custom boards are available starting today from the world’s leading add-in card providers, including ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac. Pricing starts at $279 and will vary based on partner designs, features and region.

With NVIDIA’s release of its new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti series mid-range graphic card, a large number of reviews are now available for you to find out all there is to know about this latest NVIDIA product. We’ve searched the web and posted the links to those reviews below.

• ANANDTECH
• ETEKNIX
• HOT HARDWARE
• TECHPOWERUP! (MSI VENTUS)
• GURU3D (ASUS – ROG)
• TECHPOWERUP! – (ZOTAC)
• GURU3D – (MSI GAMING X)
• TECHPOWERUP! – (EVGA)
• GURU3D – (MSI VENTUS XS)
• TECHPOWERUP! - (MSI GAMING X)
• GURU3D – (PALIT)
• KITGURU
• OC3D.NET
• PC PERSPECTIVE
• TOM’S HARDWARE
• VORTEZ
• TWEAKTOWN
• TECHRADAR

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today released GeForce 419.17 WHQL Game Ready drivers. These drivers introduce support for the new GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card launched moments earlier. These are also the first “Game Ready” drivers that come with optimization for “Anthem” and “Far Cry: New Dawn.” The drivers also add NVIDIA SLI support for “Far Cry: New Dawn” and “Apex Legends.” NVIDIA also fixed a short list of bugs. Improper decal rendering in “Doom” (2016) and “Doom Eternal” are fixed. “Battlefield V” artifacting when texture filtering is set to “high” in NVIDIA Control Panel. Dynamic Super Resolution not being available for monitors with 4K2K timings has been fixed. NVIDIA also fixed a critical security vulnerability affecting access to GPU performance counters.

You can download the new GeForce 419.17 WHQL Game Ready drivers through GeForce Experience or via GeForce.com.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• Palit Introduces the Turing Architecture- GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti Series
• INNO3D Announces its GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Twin X2 Graphics Card
• MSI Announces Four New GeForce GTX 1660 TI Series Graphics Cards
• GIGABYTE Unveils GeForce® GTX 1660Ti Series Graphics Card
• EVGA Unleashes the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti XC Series
• ZOTAC Unveils its GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Lineup
• COLORFUL Launches iGame GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ultra Graphics Card
• Gainward Announces its GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Series
• ASUS and Republic of Gamers Announce their GeForce GTX 1660 TI Cards
• AMD Drops Price on Radeon RX Vega 56 to Battle GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
• PNY Announces NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB Graphics Card

Source: Blue’s News

A new Unreal Engine version of WarBirds titled WarBirds 2020 for Windows and macOS is in the works for release this fall. This World War II aerial combat series has been flying high since it first took off in 1995, but if it wasn’t on your radar, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was grounded long ago. The latest version, WarBirds – World War II Combat Aviation – 2018 is available for Windows and macOS on Steam since it was released a few years ago as WarBirds 2016. Now this announcement reveals plans for a new version of the game to be published by MicroProse, which is odd in light of the company’s closure over 15 years ago. The circumstances surrounding the revival of MicroProse go unexplained in the announcement, but the brand was last owned by Atari, and it was snapped up in one of the Atari fire sales in 2007. Here’s WarBirds 2020 announcement:

iEntertainment Network Inc. and MicroProse announce agreement for Development and Co-Publishing of the new WarBirds 2020 World War II flight simulation that has been successfully entertaining millions on virtual online pilots since 1995.

CEO David Lagettie of MicroProse says, “I am excited to work with iEntertainment Network CEO and Co-Founder of MicroProse, ‘Wild Bill’ Stealey, to produce the next generation of WarBirds 2020 WW II combat flight simulation using new modern technology and promoting worldwide.”

Wild Bill Stealey says, “It will be fun to be working with MicroProse again to do great simulation games! We are very excited to be partnering with David and his team to update our very successful WarBirds 2020 product for WW II combat simulation fans around the world.”

WarBirds 2020 FEATURES:

• Launching for PC/Mac computers fall 2019.
• Mobile and game system versions to launch in 2020.
• Brand new graphics system using the Unreal 4 engine.
• High Detail Cockpits and Aircraft.
• New technology to map actual physical locations for more realistic simulation.
• Regular Historical Events are held monthly over large geographical areas like Europe, Japan, and not the small area skirmishes of many other sim games.