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Just Announced Hardware for 27 March 2020

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.

Hardware | Donster | March 27, 2020 |

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Episode 2 Available Tomorrow

ghost-recon-breakpoint Today, Ubisoft announced that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Breakpoint’s Episode 2 will be available from the 24th March. The Start of Episode 2 coincides with the release of the Title Update 2.0, including the new Ghost Experience and several other major additions. The update will be available on the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X and Windows PC, PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, UPLAY+, Ubisoft’s subscription service and Stadia, the new generation gaming platform from Google.

Watch the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Deep State Trailer HERE.

Title Update 2.0 is the biggest update for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint yet. It will include:

A new story Adventure tied to Episode 2 including eight narrative missions where players will team up with Sam Fisher, the renowned character from Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell®. Together, they uncover a plot to develop mind-controlled military drones, and they will have to stop its development on Auroa. The Adventure will introduce new stealth-focused gameplay elements and feature cinematics with the voice of Michael Ironside. The full Adventure will be available to all Year One Pass owners or as a standalone purchase. All players will have access to the first mission and its 2 rewards for free, and will be able to join co-op parties with friends owning the Adventure. In all, ten new exclusive Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell-themed mission rewards will be available for players to earn, provided they own the Year One Pass or Adventure from mission 2 onwards.

Two new classes available in both PvE and PvP modes, with a one-week exclusivity for Year One pass owners, starting tomorrow, 24th March.

The Echelon class – Focuses on stealth, allowing players to move silently to eliminate enemies quietly. The Echelon Class’s special ability, Sonar Vision, helps players detect enemies through walls and disturb drones.
The Engineer class – Lets players deal more damage to drones and be more effective with grenade launchers and its special ability, the Defense Drone, will attack nearby enemies, while its class tool, the Supply Drone, provides allies with an extra magazine of buffed ammo.

The Ghost Experience, a new mode free to all players that will offer new immersive and tactical options to players and let them fully customise their experience, with the possibility of removing gear level and using a more realistic loot system. All details about the new mode can be found HERE.

PVP updates, including 4 new maps and a map voting option.

Title Update 2.0 also features a host of community-requested features, including camera placement, BASE jumping, weapon/gear sorting options, vehicles, respawn system improvements, gunsmith updates and more. All details can be found HERE.

Additionally, new players will be able to experience all the new content brought by the TU 2.0 update on the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X and Windows PC, and PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system during a Free Weekend from 26th March until 29th March.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint will continue to receive regular updates in the coming months. To stay up to date with all updates please visit ghost-recon.ubisoft.com.

For the latest news about other Ubisoft games, please visit news.ubisoft.com.

Total War: Three Kingdoms A World Betrayed Released

total-war-three-kingdoms In the north, the tyrant Dong Zhuo has fallen to the blade of his adopted son, Lü Bu: a fierce warrior hellbent on defeating the great heroes of China. In the south, Sun Ce mourns the death of his father, the noble Sun Jian, and pledges his life to continue his father’s legacy. The day has come where they must stand alone, the future theirs to take…

194CE Timeline

Rewrite history as Three Kingdoms transitions into 194CE, a time in which rebellions have been thwarted but discontent and turmoil remain at large. Amid the conflict China’s foremost warlords clash as they hasten to fill the power vacuum left vacant at the heart of the Han Dynasty.

Expanded Warlord Roster

With the indomitable Lü Bu and the ambitious Sun Ce, A World Betrayed features two of China’s most prodigious warlords of the period as playable factions within the new campaign. Both peerless warriors feature unique story arcs, new mechanics, and faction specific elites ready to lay waste to the false claimants of China.

Free Update

A World Betrayed also ushers in the next update for all Three Kingdoms players. Patch 1.5.0 grants access to a brand-new warlord in the form of Yan Baihu, unique commanders, powerful warriors and eminent statesmen, as well as revamps to the spies and bandit factions, plus much more. Additional details on the accompanying patch can be found HERE.

A World Betrayed is now available on Steam. Watch the Total War: Three Kingdoms – A World Betrayed PR Featurette video HERE.

Strategy and Wargaming Total War: Three Kingdoms | Donster | March 23, 2020 |

NVIDIA Announces DLSS 2.0 and New GeForce 445.75 Game Ready Drivers

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today announced its new Deep Learning Supersampling 2.0 (DLSS 2.0) performance enhancement feature, being distributed through the new GeForce 445.75 Game Ready drivers. DLSS 2.0 is NVIDIA’s second attempt at a holy grail of performance boost at acceptable levels of quality loss (think what MP3 did to WAV). It works by rendering the 3D scene at a lower resolution than what your display is capable of, and upscaling it with deep-learning reconstructing details using a pre-trained neural network. Perhaps the two biggest differences between DLSS 2.0 and the original DLSS that made its debut with GeForce RTX 20-series in 2018, is the lack of a need for game-specific content for training the DLSS neural net; and implementation of a rendering technique called temporal feedback.

As mentioned earlier, DLSS 2.0 offers image quality comparable to original resolution while only rendering 1/4 or1/2 the pixels. It then uses new temporal feedback techniques to reconstruct details in the image. DLSS 2.0 is also able to use tensor cores on GeForce RTX GPUs “more efficiently,” to execute “2x faster” than the original DLSS. Lastly, DLSS 2.0 gives users greater control over the image quality, which affects the rendering resolution of your game: quality, balanced (1:2), and performance (1:4), where the ratio denotes rendering-resolution to display resolution. Resolution scaling is a sure-shot way to gain performance, but at noticeable quality loss. DLSS uses AI to restore some of the details. The difference between performance gained from resolution scaling and AI-based image quality enhancement is the net DLSS performance uplift. In addition to DLSS 2.0, GeForce 445.75 drivers come game-ready for “Half Life: Alyx.”

You can download the GeForce 445.75 Game Ready drivers via GeForce.com.

Hardware Video Cards | Donster | March 23, 2020 |

Apache Helicopters Swoop in War Thunder

The ‘Viking Fury’ Update Brings Swedish Ground Forces and New Signature Vehicles for Other Nations

Gaijin Entertainment are announcing the release of the Viking Fury Content Update for the military online action game War Thunder. While the main theme of the Update is the testing of the Swedish ground forces tree, there are other cool toys to play with. The most important ones are the heavy cruiser HMS London, the J35 Draken jet fighter and several variants of the AH-64 Apache, the main attack helicopter of the US Army and one of the most famous military vehicles of our time.

The production of the AH-64 started in 1983. This helicopter was used in almost all military conflicts involving the US Army, including Panama, Iraq (twice), Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. It is also used by the military of 15 other nations like Greece, Singapore and Japan. War Thunder players will be able to try four variants of the Apache: the basic AH-64A, the upgraded AH-64D Apache Longbow, the British AH Mk.1 version and the Israeli Peten. The Update will also bring a Russian alternative to the Apache – the latest Ka-52 attack helicopter.

Swedish ground forces include both WW2 era vehicles and more recent ones, like the Pvrbv 551 – a tank destroyer equipped with TOW guided missiles, or VEAK 40 – a self-propelled anti-air gun with a sophisticated radar. The list of modern tanks from other nations has been extended with the ZTZ96A (the most common Chinese MBT nowadays), the Т-72B (a Т-72 variant from the 80’s with upgraded armor) and the Radkampfwagen 90 (experimental German wheeled tank).

Naval military history fans might want to try HMS London — a County-class British heavy cruiser designed and built in the interwar years around the restrictions imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty. Because of those restrictions, the ship has very light armour, but quite powerful armament: eight 8-inch (203mm) cannons, four dual 4-inch (102mm) dual-purpose cannons, two octuple and four single 40mm cannons, as well as eight dual and four single 20mm cannons. If that isn’t enough, HMS London is also outfitted with two quadruple 21-inch (533mm) torpedo launchers. HMS London took part in the famous pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck and defended the Arctic Convoys laden with military supplies for the Soviet Union, but her most fierce battle happened after the war, when the ship was engaged in a fight with Chinese artillery on the Yangtze River in 1949.

Watch the War Thunder Viking Fury Update trailer HERE.

Check the official War Thunder website for more information on the Viking Fury update.

MMORPGs War Thunder | Donster | March 19, 2020 |

Tannenberg Kicks Off Wolf Truce Event

The Wolf Truce is back – beware the fang and bullet

March 19, 2020 – This thrilling historical event for the WW1 shooter Tannenberg lets loose a hungry pack of wolves on the battlefield!

The wolves are on the hunt, causing mayhem on the battlefield. Will you call a truce with your enemy to fend them off, or will you use the ensuing chaos to your advantage? Inspired by historical records, this event will allow players to decide how to deal with this third party on the battlefield.

Check out the Wolf Truce trailer HERE.

The Wolf Truce – The wolves are more hungry then ever

From today until March the 29th the wolves are on the prowl, searching for prey on the battlefield. Beware during the regular Maneuver battles, as there is a chance that the wolves will appear, causing all kinds of havoc on the frontlines. When this happens, the players can call upon a temporary truce in order to frantically fend off these hungry beasts together. If the truce is upheld, all surviving players can earn a special in-game medal! The truce however is not enforced by the game which means that a careless shot or a gung-ho soldier that sees an opportunity for glory can break it, with all the chaotic consequences!

This event is inspired upon historical texts that detail the dangers wolves posed on the long Eastern Front. In that time Russia had a huge population of wolves, which were displaced by the World War, causing all kinds of dangers for the soldiers and civilians. In this truce the wolves are more hungry than ever killing you in 2 bites! Furthermore the communication around the truce in-game as well as the grace period have been made more clear.

Fact or Fiction?

Soldiers of the Great War have fought against the unbearable, whether it’s the enemy, weather, nature, diseases or animals.. There are several historical records that report upon the dangers and actions soldiers took against the large number of displaced wolves in Russia who posed a threat mainly to civilians. There are even stories of soldiers trying to fend off roving packs of wolves with machine guns and poison gas. Whether fact or fiction, the Wolf Truce event has been inspired by these stories and gives players a unique battlefield dilemma; do you cease fire and fight the canine threat together, or do you use the chaos to press on?

Find out more about Tannenberg on Steam or on the games official website.

First-Person Shooters Tannenberg 1914-1918 | Donster | March 19, 2020 |

Panzer Corps 2 Released

panzer-corps-2 The wait is over: Panzer Corps 2, the ultimate World War II strategy game, is now available for purchase.

Generals, it is time to start your Panzer Division’s engines. Take command of the Wehrmacht war machine, from the invasion in Poland in 1939 to the final defence of Berlin in 1945. You’ll fight battle after battle using the classic turn-based hex system all wargamers have loved since Panzer General, the father of a genre to which Panzer Corps 2 is the spiritual successor.

Enjoy the massive amount of content, including more than a thousand unique 3D unit models, over 60 scenarios forming the Wehrmacht grand campaign, an advanced random map generator for playing skirmish games against the AI or other players. Since the modding community was such a great part of the first Panzer Corps, in the sequel you will find a much improved Scenario Editor available to support mods from day one.

“Panzer Corps started ten years ago as a passion project by a single modder. We took it to the market with the idea of bringing back a genre that made the history of gaming as we know it, and we are proud to have achieved that”, said Iain McNeil, Slitherine CEO. “Not only Panzer Corps became a very successful game, it also contributed to inspire others to reinvent turn-based strategy and make it one of the core genre of the 21st century. We see Panzer Corps 2 as the testament of all this journey and we are confident players will celebrate it with us“.

You are able to acquire Panzer Corps 2 in three different editions: the base game, the General Edition or the ultimate Field Marshal Edition, each one with exclusive bonus materials.

Furthermore, take advantage of Slitherine’s exclusive offer: starting now and for one week you will be able to acquire a physical copy of Panzer Corps 2 at no additional cost except postage cost.

Watch the “What is Panzer Corps 2 in 2 Minutes” trailer HERE.

Due to delays with localization French, Portuguese (Brazil) and Polish will be added as fully supported languages in a few days. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we promise it will be well worth the wait.

Panzer Corps 2 Strategy and Wargaming | Donster | March 19, 2020 |

NVIDIA Releases GeForce 442.74 Game Ready Drivers

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today posted GeForce 442.74 WHQL Game Ready drivers. These come with optimization and bug fixes for the weekend’s biggest release, “DOOM Eternal,” which goes live in Asia and ANZ in a few minutes from now. Besides this, the 442.74 WHQL drivers address just one bug: an issue with “Red Dead Redemption 2,” where task-switching with alt+Tab in the middle of the game may result in a black screen.

You can download the GeForce Software 442.74 WHQL drivers via GeForce.com.

Hardware Video Cards | Donster | March 19, 2020 |

AMD Releases Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.3.1 Drivers

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD released the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition drivers just in time for Asia and ANZ regions to begin “razing hell” with DOOM Eternal. Version 20.3.1 adds day-one optimization for DOOM Eternal, including an up to 5 percent performance improvement with “Ultra Nightmare” graphics settings. Optimization is also added for “Half Life: Alyx” and the Vulkan API mode of “Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.” The drivers also add a few Vulkan extensions: VK_EXT_post_depth_coverage (only supported on RDNA or later graphics architectures); VK_KHR_shader_non_semantic_info, VK_EXT_texel_buffer_alignment, and VK_EXT_pipeline_creation_cache_control.

The Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.3.1 drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Hardware Video Cards | Donster | March 19, 2020 |

Just Announced Hardware for 19 March 2020

Hardware | Donster | March 19, 2020 |