Source: Blue’s News

The Ubisoft Forums offer details on a new patch that’s now live in Rainbow Six: Siege, updating the first-person shooter sequel to version 1.3, and the UbiBlog has further word. The patch notes outline what’s changed, including anti-cheating improvements, an update to their ban policy, and an exploit fix that’s being tested and should go live on all platforms today. Here’s the overview:

Today we are sharing our third update. This one is smaller because we felt we needed to quickly fix some issues. The changes described below will take effect on January 13th for PC and on January 20th for consoles, except the server tick rate improvement, the anti-cheating and banning policy improvements as well as the out-of-zone insta-kill option which is effective for all immediately (read below for details). This patch will be released on PC first because of the faster deployment process, in order to test the impact the fixes have and adjust if needed. Note that tomorrow, January 13th, Patch 1.2 takes effect on consoles. A much bigger patch, Patch 2.0, will be released at the same time as Season 1, on February 2nd. This update will be made available on PC and consoles at the same time.

Please refer to our post about our top priorities and known issues to see our current plans and steps we are taking to improve the game as we move forwards. Note that this update, Patch 1.3, will not fix all of our current top issues and that we are actively working on fixing them as soon as possible.

Source: PC Perspective

NVIDIA has been pushing for WHQL certification for their drivers, but sometimes issues slip through QA, both at Microsoft and their own, internal team(s). Sometimes these issues will be fixed in a future release, but sometimes they push out a “HotFix” driver immediately. This is often great for people who experience the problems, but they should not be installed otherwise.

In this case, GeForce Hotfix driver 361.60 fixes two issues. One is listed as “install & clocking related issues,” which refers to the GPU memory clock. According to Manuel Guzman of NVIDIA, some games and software was not causing the driver to fully wake the memory clock to a high-performance state. The other issue is “Crashes in Photoshop & Illustrator,” which fixes blue screen issues in both software, and possibly other programs that use the GPU in similar ways. I’ve never seen GeForce Driver 361.43 cause a BSOD in Photoshop, but I am a few versions behind with CS5.5.

Download links are available at NVIDIA Support, but unaffected users should just wait for an official driver in case the patch causes other issues, due to its minimal QA.

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.

• BIOSTAR Launches RACING B150GT5 Motherboard
• EVGA Announces SuperNOVA T2 Series Power Supplies
• GIGABYTE Launches 5 New High-End Motherboards With the X170 and X150 Series
• BitFenix Announces the Spectre Xtreme and Spectre Xtreme LED Fans
• Phanteks Displays Eclipse P400/P400s, Enthoo Primo Dual System, Evolv Tempered Glass Edition, Project 916
• EK Water Blocks Issues Product Recall on EK-XLC Predator CPU Coolers
• Lian Li Introduces the Fanless Micro-ITX PC-Q04 PC Chassis
• MSI Introduces the Vortex Cylindrical Tower Gaming PC – VIDEO

Source: PCInvasion

Battlestate Games has been slowly teasing their action online survival FPS/RPG Escape from Tarkov for a few months and today they launched their pre-order deals.

Escape from Tarkov looks impressive enough but there’s not been a massive amount of detail released about the game and perhaps pre-orders are a little premature. Despite the lack of actual hands-on reports and a small amount of video footage, Battlestate Games obviously feel there’s enough interest to entice gamers with pre-orders.

The different options can be purchased on the official website’s pre-order page.

Source: AnandTech

This week AMD has pushed out their first video driver release of the year, Crimson 16.1 Hotfix. Between this latest hotfix and their previous Crimson update, AMD is making a solid showing, as the company has assembled rather sizable quantity of bug fixes for only a month’s work.

Crimson 16.1 Hotfix brings AMD’s drivers to version 15.301.1201, and contains several fixes for multiple games, including Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront, and Just Cause 3. Also mentioned in AMD’s release notes are a number of display-related fixes, with some FreeSync issues addressed and several Eyefinity setup/configuration edge case issues taken care of. And though none of us have encountered this issue with prior drivers, AMD notes that frame rate target control support has been tweaked to be more consistent – just be sure to disable V-Sync.

As always, those interested in reading more or installing the updated hotfix drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them either under the driver update section in Radeon Settings or on AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson Edition download page.

By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ GURU3D

We review the Zalman ZM1000-EBT power supply. This 1 kilowatt powerhouse of the model comes Gold certified, that means it’s roughly 90% efficient at 50% load. Efficiency matters. The PSU itself is fully modular, for most of you with a side panel window in their chassis that is a must really as you’ll want modular cables. Have a peek at the article. This 80 Plus Gold certified power supply is profoundly advertised as a PSU with solid Japanese capacitors, and offers a fully modular design in cables.

Read The Review Here

By Steven Walton @ TechSpot

With its vast experience of case building, Corsair must have foreseen that the Carbide 600C we reviewed last month wouldn’t appeal to everyone with its inverted ATX layout, so its counteroffer seems premeditated. The new Carbide 400 series is a more traditional approach that still maintains the clean lines and curved solid-steel exterior of the 600 series for a great minimalist look.

Read The Review Here

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.

• SAPPHIRE NITRO R9 FURY Series Video Cards Announced
• DeepCool Debuts GENOME Liquid Cooling
• GIGABYTE Launches New Feature-packed Power Supplies
• TRENDnet Announces High-Performance AC1900 Wi-Fi USB Adapter
• Corsair Shows Off SF Line of SFX PSUs
• Sea Sonic Announces its Flagship PRIME Titanium Line of Power Supplies
• Tt eSPORTS Unveils the New CHALLENGER Prime RGB Membrane Gaming Combo
• Enermax Announces the DF Fan Series
• Mushkin Shows Off a 4TB SSD with Estimated Price of US$500
• AMD Intros A10-7890K, Fastest Godavari APU Yet
• G.SKILL Announces DDR4 3000MHz CL14 128GB Memory Kit
• BIOSTAR Announces RACING Z170GT7 Motherboard
• AMD’s R9 Nano Just Got More Interesting With Big Price Drop
• Dell Unveils a 30-inch Ultra HD Monitor with an OLED Panel
• Intel Admits to Skylake Bug that Freezes Windows and Linux Systems
• EK Releases EK-XLC Predator 240 with Quick Disconnect!
• MSI Releases R9 380 GAMING 2G LE
• EK Announces CrossChill EK Hybrid Cooling Block for ASUS MAXIMUS VIII Formula!

Source: Blue’s News

A Steam community announcement unveils details on Sky Fortress DLC for Just Cause 3, the “air” portion of the Air, Land and Sea expansion pass announced a few months ago. The post also offers details on a small release coming to the action sequel today on all platforms which will add the ability to buy content previously offered as preorder bonuses, and say they are also working on addressing issues with the game. Here’s word:

For those of you who picked up the XL Edition, or for anyone interested in the Air, Land and Sea Expansion Pass we announced earlier last year, we’ve got some exciting news for you all. Whilst one side of the studio is working on patches, fixes and optimisations for the game, which will continue to roll out over the coming weeks, the other side is busily bringing this additional content to life. The first pack – ‘Sky Fortress’ which is the “Air” pack, is nearing completion, and will bring new missions, features and other exciting surprises to the skies of Medici. We’re play testing this content right now so watch this space for more news on this very soon.

On top of this, we’ve got a small release of additional weapons and vehicles landing across Steam, PSN & Xbox stores today. This isn’t strictly new stuff – all of this content was previously available as part of our pre-order programmes, so for the early adopters out there you may already have most of these items. However, if there’s any particular pre-order incentives you missed out on that you want to pick up, you can now do so. Check out the store pages for more info.

For those of you that are still having some issues with your game, rest assured that we’re working on optimisations, bug fixes, performance enhancements and improvements, and we’ll continue to roll these out as soon as they’re ready, with the next patch expected later in the month. We’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of all the issues that are reported to us.

Your Council Would Like a Word With You

The new year will bring new goodies from Paradox Development Studio and the team behind Crusader Kings II, Paradox’s best-selling and critically beloved medieval grand strategy game.

Conclave, the newest expansion for the game, will give your vassals some bite to go along with your bark, as the council that governs your realm will now demand some say in how you rule. Powerful dukes, regardless of competence, will require a seat at the table, and those left on the outside will be more likely to plot against you.

Keep your council happy, and the mighty vassals will resist the pull of faction and civil war. Dismiss their interests, though, and you may find yourself trying to hold together a council at war with itself.

Balance councillor skill and power to keep your dynasty safe and strong. Ignore powerful underlings at your peril, or simply buy their loyalty with favors. Conclave makes the royal council a force unto itself.

Other features of Conclave will include:

• Councils can now vote on changes to realm laws – or you can try to limit their power and influence
• Revised education system for royal children, with new traits and events designed for childhood
• New diplomatic system that prioritizes marital alliances and non-aggression pacts, as well as the possibility of coalitions
• Improved military combat model with a greater emphasis on morale, as well as new rules for mercenary companies
• And many more smaller changes including the usual tweaks to how the AI prioritizes its decisions.
• So the choice will be yours; do you dare to challenge your vassals on their council at the risk of challenging them on the battlefield? Can you move your nation towards greater centralization and power without your advisors realizing how much they are losing in the deal?

Crusader Kings II appreciates the subtlety of court intrigue. Conclave will give you new avenues to test that skill. You can watch the Crusader Kings II: Conclave Reveal Trailer here.

Conclave will be available in early 2016. For more information on Crusader Kings II, click here.