It took nearly eight years, but the new Team Fortress 2 comic Valve promised back in July is finally here. Entitled “The Days Have Worn Away,” issue 7 is a free digital comic that tells a sprawling tale of history, redemption, and the very special magic of Smissmas.
Valve said it’s “very, very relieved” to finally have this next chapter of the Team Fortress 2 comic finished, but pointed out that it could be worse.
“Did you know the construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was one hundred and ninety nine years late?” Valve wrote. “Literally everyone alive when construction started was dead by the time it finished. So unless you’re having this read to you from the bad side of a Ouija board, you made it out the other end of issue seven’s historically-speaking-pretty-short seven year delay alive. Which isn’t too bad.”
I won’t spoil any of it for you, but suffice to say that there is a lot going on in this one, and some genuine surprises including what I’m pretty sure is our very first look at one of the team members unmasked. It gets dark in places, unexpectedly emotional, and very strange, but finishes on an appropriately festive high note. I don’t think it’s revealing too much to say the Soldier takes center stage in this tale, though and, and in a very nice touch it’s dedicated to Rick May, the voice of the Soldier, who died in 2020 at age 79 after contracting Covid-19.
As PC Gamer’s Rich Stanton pointed out when word of the new comic first appeared, the previous issue in the series, “The Naked and the Dead,” arrived on January 10, 2017. That’s just a month shy of eight years, and yes, Valve Time is real, but even so hopes that this story would ever continue had grown faint over the years. It’s not all that surprising, then, that the release of the next issue has been greeted with something akin to rapturous joy:
(Image credit: Reddit)
It sounds like this is the end: Valve writer Erik Wolpaw shared an image on X of “the last TF comics meeting ever.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734739251_After-nearly-8-long-years-a-new-Team-Fortress-2.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-20 22:13:422024-12-20 22:13:42After nearly 8 long years, a new Team Fortress 2 comic is finally here and the TF community is rejoicing
AMD, of course, is responsible for both the CPU cores and the bulk of the GPU technology in PS5 Pro. But when it comes to AI acceleration for upscaling, Sony decided to very much do its own thing.
For clarity, what we’re talking about here when we refer to “AI acceleration” is the matrix math hardware used to power neural networks, otherwise known as machine learning or ML. Currently, both Nvidia and Intel have dedicated matrix math acceleration hardware in their graphics chips for PCs. But AMD does not. Indeed, the existing AMD-based PS5 non-Pro has no dedicated matrix math hardware.
In Nvidia and Intel GPUs, that matrix math hardware is primarily used for various upscaling technologies, including DLSS and XeSS. The lack of matrix math hardware in AMD GPUs is why AMD’s FSR upscaling is based on hand-coded algorithms rather than ML. And that, in turn, is a big part of the reason why FSR isn’t as good even as XeSS by many measures and is certainly behind DLSS.
According to Cerny, Sony had two critical decisions to make for PS5 Pro and ML acceleration. First, it had to decide whether to have a dedicated NPU or Neural Processing Unit or to use an enhanced GPU. Sony chose the latter.
Then it had to decide whether to license that technology or build its own. Cerny says the PS5 Pro project started way back in 2020 and from the get go it was decided that Sony didn’t want generic ML hardware, but something specific to PS5 Pro’s workloads.
Sony decided to go its own way with machine learning hardware. (Image credit: Sony)
“Once you’re licensing technology, that’s what you’re doing forever. So, in 2020, despite the degree of effort required, we decided to build our own hardware and software technology,” Cerny says.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
The target was 300 TOPS of ML performance. That’s 300 trillion operations per second, or roughly on par with the raw ML performance of an Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti.
To achieve that, Sony modified AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU architecture. “We made a set of targeted enhancements to the RDNA shader core and the surrounding memory systems. We’re calling it custom RDNA,” Cerny says.
The problem for Sony was that adding matrix math capability to the RDNA 2 shader core as used in the plain old PS5 wasn’t going to be enough. Matrix math is incredibly bandwidth hungry to the extent that, without enhancements to the memory system, the new ML hardware would only achieve 3% of its full potential in a worst-case scenario. Yikes.
So, Sony came up with a custom on-chip memory solution, plus tiling algorithms, that allow the matrix math to be done entirely on the GPU and without having to access system memory.
(Image credit: Sony)
Designing all this was a “four-year journey” according to Cerny. The result uses the vector registers in the RDNA 2 shaders as RAM. That provides 15 MB of memory at a combined bandwidth of 200 TB/s. That compares with the “mere” 576 GB/s of bandwidth of the PS5 Pros GDDR6 memory. Meanwhile, the tiling algorithms allows the matrix math to be split up into pieces small enough to fit inside that 15 MB.
Anyway, it’s that new ML hardware that powers Sony’s new Playstation Spectral Super Resolution or PSSR upscaling software, which is essentially Sony’s answer to Nvidia DLSS and Intel XeSS. Oh and AMD FSR, albeit as explained above FSR is not based on machine learning.
“Looking back at the four years since we started this project, I’m so glad that we made the time-intensive decision to build our own technology. Results are good and just as importantly, we’ve learned so much about how AI can improve game graphics. It can only make our future brighter, say Cerny.”
So, the big question that follows out of this is why Sony felt the need to do its own ML hardware. Cerny says Sony didn’t want to be tied into a permanent licensing arrangement, which implies that Sony views ML upscaling as even more important than GPU architecture. After all, Sony is willing to license AMD’s broader GPU architectures.
The PS5 Pro’s ML hardware has about the same matrix math power as an Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti. (Image credit: Sony)
Then again, back in 2020 did AMD even have ML hardware to offer? It’s worth noting that AMD’s current RDNA 3 based GPUs still lack ML hardware. And some rumors suggest its upcoming RDNA 4 GPUs may not have ML hardware, either. So, maybe the only way Sony could get ML hardware into the PS5 Pro was to do its own thing.
If true, it would also mean that we likely won’t see an AMD graphics chip with ML hardware until about 2027 when the upcoming RDAN4 chips are replaced with something based on AMD’s new CDNA unified architecture.
Given even Intel’s first-gen Arc GPUs had ML hardware and Nvidia is about to launch its fourth generation of GPUs with ML hardware, that really is a damning indictment of AMD’s GPU technology and leaves the company nowhere in the AI upscaling race.
Here’s hoping that rumors are incorrect and AMD has some GPUs with ML hardware coming soon.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Sony-decided-fully-four-years-ago-to-develop-its-own.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-20 13:22:022024-12-20 13:22:02Sony decided fully four years ago to develop its own AI hardware for the PS5 Pro rather than using AMD tech and the big question is why
“Long live rock, be it dead or alive,” the man once said, and for a little more than a year now, Rocksmith 2014 has indeed been dead. But now it’s alive again, and back on Steam in a slightly retuned format as Rocksmith 2014 Edition Remastered Learn and Play.
First released in 2013, Rocksmith 2014 is a bit like Guitar Hero except it uses a real guitar as a controller, and teaches you to play real songs. It’s quite good, and amassed a “very positive” user rating over the years on Steam, but in October 2023—its 10th anniversary—Ubisoftremoved the game from sale. A reason for the takedown wasn’t provided at the time, but we suspected expiring licenses were the cause, and sure enough Ubisoft has now confirmed that was the case.
“In 2023, Rocksmith 2014 Remastered was temporarily removed due to the expiration of our music licensing deals,” the Steam page states. “While we believe Rocksmith+ offers the ultimate destination for learning guitar, bass and piano with its extensive music catalog, we have also heard the Rocksmith 2014 community’s feedback. You asked for Rocksmith 2014 Remastered to return, so we did just that!”
The expired licenses are still an issue: While the re-released Rocksmith 2014 “is identical to the original” in functionality, all of the licensed songs have been replaced with “a collection of tracks and exercises from our popular downloadable content bundles,” including:
Bachsmith and Bachsmith II
Classic Melody Song Pack
Rocksmith Easy Exercises, Vol. 1 & 2
Rocksmith Intermediate Exercises, Vol. 1 & 2
Rocksmith Advanced Exercises, Vol. 1 & 2
That sounds possibly not great—I want to rock out with Zeppelin, not “intermediate exercises”—but a mountain of Rocksmith 2014 DLC remains: 1,226 pieces of it, including individual tracks and song packs. If you already own the original Rocksmith 2014, you won’t be able to download this edition, because otherwise you’d lose access to the licensed music it contains.
I think it’s very cool that Rocksmith 2014 is back, and I can’t help wondering if Ubisoft’s comments about Rocksmith+ offer a little more insight than intended as to the reason for the comeback. Rocksmith+ is billed as “the evolution from Rocksmith 2014 Edition, which had to be retired for music licensing requirements,” but full access to the game requires a subscription that costs $20 per month. Adding insult to injury, Rocksmith+ is not compatible with Rocksmith 2014 tracks, so any music you bought for that game is useless with the new one. Predictably, Rocksmith+ currently bears an “overwhelmingly negative” rating on Steam, and hasn’t had more than 100 concurrent players since the beginning of June—a small fraction of Rocksmith 2014’s concurrent player count, even post-delisting.
Rocksmith 2014 isn’t just back on Steam, it’s also on sale for 70% off, meaning you can pick it up right now for just $3. Long live Rocksmith 2014.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734667134_Rocksmith-2014-the-one-people-actually-like-is-back-on.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-19 23:13:312024-12-19 23:13:31Rocksmith 2014, the one people actually like, is back on Steam due to popular demand
I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to think 2025 might be the year of the handheld gaming PC. This recently teased OneXPlayer G1 handheld with a removeable keyboard is a good sign of things to come, anyways.
We’ll be embarking fully into the second generation of handheld tech in 2025, and that means companies can hopefully start experimenting a little more now they’ve got a more mature foundation on which to do so.
We’re certainly seeing such experimentation from OneXPlayer’s latest announcement. It “combines a sleek, compact design with a detachable keyboard and built-in controls for ultimate versatility”.
It also comes with the same HX 370 processor that you’ll find in the top-end version of the new OneXFly F1 Pro which our Dave’s been testing. He’s been genuinely impressed with the level of performance you can get out of it at 1080p, especially with the help of FSR 3 and frame gen.
But if you want to hear about all that you can wait for Dave’s review. With this OneXPlayer G1, the main thing is that laptop/handheld design. It can be hard to make out in the YouTube video—it’s a teaser that actually teases—but on its Indiegogo page things are laid out very clearly.
It’s a GPD-looking thing, reminding me of the GPD Win Max 2 in shape and stature, at least—its screen is a little smaller than the Max 2, but significantly bigger than the Mini. The difference is, the G1 has a detachable keyboard, meaning you can “switch seamlessly between laptop, console, and tablet modes for any task.”
Once that keyboard (and trackpad) is peeled, you have access to a controller layout, along with what looks to be a smaller touch keyboard underneath, in the same kind of split layout as the GPD.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
This is exactly the kind of experimentation I like to see in the handheld sphere, now that many handhelds have nailed the basics. New form factors are always fun.
We’ve already seen some Acer experimenting in a similar fashion with its Project DualPlay concept. Except that’s more decidedly a laptop—it just has a pop-out gamepad on the underside of the trackpad. And we’ve seen dual-screen innovation in the form of the Ayaneo Flip DS, which our Jacob Ridley really loves.
So yeah, I’m excited not just for this particular handheld, if and when it comes to market, but for what kinds of mainstream form factor adjustments it might lead to in the handheld market in general. And to be honest, it’s probably best I don’t get my sights honed in on the OneXPlayer G1 in particular, given it’ll probably be incredibly expensive. That is, assuming the F1 Pro is anything to go by.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734631095_OneXPlayer-has-teased-a-handheld-PC-with-a-removable-keyboard.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-19 17:12:052024-12-19 17:12:05OneXPlayer has teased a handheld PC with a removable keyboard that’s getting me all sorts of excited for laptop/handheld hybrids
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/ASSASSINS-CREED-VALHALLA-115-A-SAGA-DAS-NAVES.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202024-12-19 15:00:132024-12-19 15:00:13ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA #115 | A SAGA DAS NAVES – RAGNAROK IS COMING
There’s a clue for today’s Wordle waiting just a little further down the page, ready to help if you need it while making sure all the fun puzzle-solving parts of the daily game are left just for you. And if you find yourself running out of rows, time, or viable words after a while—don’t panic. The answer to the December 19 (1279) game’s only a click away, and can save your win streak at any time.
My fingers found today’s answer before my brain did, automatically rearranging the yellows I’d found before I’d quite realised which word they were typing out on my behalf. Something of an odd experience, but it still counted as a win, so I won’t grumble. I’d appreciate it if my hands gave me a bit of warning next time though, just so I could pretend I’d been clever.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, December 19
A person or pet who was this would have unintentionally wandered off and got lost. This can also refer to anything out of its proper place, from cutlery to random odd socks.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day.
A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word.
A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
There may be a repeat letter in the answer.
You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Hey, you might need this. The answer to the December 19 (1279) Wordle is STRAY.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.
Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:
December 18: HEFTY
December 17: SCOWL
December 16: BOAST
December 15: FUNKY
December 14: DROOL
December 13: BOXER
December 12: VYING
December 11: PLUMB
December 10: PATIO
December 9: FLUNG
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.
Getting off to a good start with a strong word like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
So Ciri’s a Witcher now, taking the lead in The Witcher 4, and that has resulted in questions. Some of them are the predictable hue and cry about a girl taking over for Geralt—complaints about “wokeness” and DEI and all that sort of nonsense—but there are also legitimate questions about how it all fits with the established Witcher lore. The Trial of the Grasses, for instance, was previously only survivable by young boys (and only a small portion of them), so how did Ciri get through it—or did she at all? And what about the powers enabled by her Elder Blood?
In an interview with Eurogamer, narrative director Phillipp Weber and director Sebastian Kalemba acknowledged that there are “many very valid worries and responses” about what was shown at The Game Awards, but reassured fans that they’re not just making stuff up on the fly.
“We are beholden to the lore, the canon of the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, the three previous Witcher games, and we’d want to take that seriously, and we really want to respect that,” Weber said. “So all the answers we basically want to give in The Witcher 4 are in line with this attitude. We’re not suddenly making up stuff just because we want to. We really want to take these things seriously.”
Weber said he understands that some fans wanted another game featuring Geralt, and said he “could make games about Geralt until the day I die, and I would probably die happy.” But, he continued, making the game about Ciri provides new opportunities for CD Projekt in terms of both the character and gameplay. “I think the best answer for us, for those people that really are worried right now, is basically to show them, when we are ready, that we really do this well and with care,” he said. “And I think—I hope—we can then convince them with the game itself. Because I think actions speak louder than words.”
He also acknowledged the difficulties and challenges women face in The Witcher’s notoriously sexist world, and said developers won’t shy away from that when telling Ciri’s story.
“We make games for adults, and it also means that we tackle some difficult topics. We tackle them in interesting ways,” Weber said. “We tackle them without giving easy answers, but often opening difficult questions that players have to answer.
“I think some of those questions might be going in this direction as well, because, yeah, Ciri is a woman, and as a witcher in this world, this is an unusual state. So I don’t think it’s going to be this story everywhere, but since this is a part of this world, and we want to tackle so many of those different themes, it’s definitely also going to appear there as well.”
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
The Witcher IV — Cinematic Reveal Trailer | The Game Awards 2024 – YouTube
Weber touched on the desire among some Witcher fans to be able to make their own unique monster hunters rather than being shackled to a specific character, saying that “character-driven storytelling has been always in the DNA of our Witcher games.” Opting for Ciri in the lead role also enables developers to offer players a little more flexibility in that regard than they had in the previous games: While Geralt was an experienced Witcher right from the start of his trilogy, Ciri is just beginning her journey on the Path. “So in a way, even though Ciri is, of course, a defined character, with her, players will have the opportunity to still define her quite a bit more, specifically define the path that she will take on her way to becoming a witcher, and basically also what kind of person that will make her,” Weber said.
For those who really do want to get back to the OG, Weber seemed to at least leave the door open to the possibility. “We can promise that Geralt will appear, but we cannot tell you if it’s going to be playable or not right now,” he said. “But yeah, he will appear.”
The Witcher 4 doesn’t have a release target at this point, but it is definitely getting closer.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734558964_We-are-beholden-to-the-lore-CD-Projekt-says-there.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-18 20:13:552024-12-18 20:13:55‘We are beholden to the lore’: CD Projekt says there are ‘valid worries’ about Ciri as a witcher, but ‘the answers we want to give in The Witcher 4 are in line with this attitude’
We’re checking out the hidden gems of Game Pass over the next few weeks, digging up all the obscure and esoteric games secreted away in our subscription and seeing how they play.
If you weren’t around for them, the ’90s were pretty much humanity’s gilded age. Store shelves bristled with chemical taffies, nothing bad was ever going to happen to the economy, Frasier was on the television, and we’d replaced the tedious business of caring for real pets with small, electronic pocket beasts. It was like the golden century from Battletech, but it lasted 10 years and Doug was on.
A lost era, but at least I’ve been able to relive the glory in The Big Con, a crime caper about sticking it to the man by hustling, pickpocketing, and otherwise scamming your way across America. It’s all for noble reasons, mind you: Unscrupulous loan sharks are threatening the family video rental store with closure unless you can magic up almost $100,000 in two weeks.
Still, at least if you manage to pull it off your video rental business will remain infinitely, eternally relevant.
Charm offensive
Garishly hued and dripping with era-appropriate ‘tude, The Big Con might be the most charismatic game I’ve played in ages. The whole thing looks like a lost Nickelodeon series, drenched in bright, wobbly colours and filled with exaggerated characters.
You, on the other hand, look relatively normal, at least before you start equipping the game’s disguises. Teen heroine Ali is an archetypal ’90s protagonist—sarcastic, precocious and resolutely opposed to anything resembling authority. A model scam artist, then
The whole thing looks like a lost Nickelodeon series, drenched in bright, wobbly colours and filled with exaggerated characters.
The Big Con’s gameplay loops are fun but relatively simple: Arrive in a hub area, run around looking for people to pickpocket, eavesdrop on them to find new scams, and in general try to wring every cent out of a level before moving on. Mechanically, it’s nothing too taxing, a combo of scavenger hunt (finding everything each level has to offer) and minigame collection—let go of the action button at the right time to pick a pocket, pick the responses that match a person’s mood to con them successfully, that kind of thing.
It’s a puzzle game, in other words, where the puzzle is figuring out the best way to con your helpless marks. For instance, at one point you overhear a flustered father ask his daughter not to cry about not getting the toy she wanted; he finds it impossible to say no when someone turns on the waterworks. From there, it’s easy enough to figure out that what you need to do is steal the toy his daughter wants from someone else, demand an extortionate sum of money for it, and then start crying when you get pushback. The art of the deal, baby.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
At other times, your job will be to distract store clerks while they make change for you, forcing them to miscount and hand over way more money than you’re owed. That just means choosing a dialogue option (from three possibilities) that fits their mood. Do it right enough times in a row and you can make hundreds of bucks.
In other words, it’s nothing too complicated, which means the writing has to be consistently on point to keep you pressing forward. Good news: it is. It doesn’t always hit—what does?—but I was usually thrilled whenever Ali got wrapped up in conversation with another potential mark. She’s sarcastic and witty, which would be very easy to do terribly, insufferably wrong, but the game pulls it off so well it makes the whole thing look easy.
She never becomes an obvious and irritating stand-in for her writer, and the game’s cast of weirdo characters, like your con-artist mentor and the pimple-faced teenage boy who seems to man the checkout at every store in America, all feel like they fell out of your favourite childhood cartoons. Or your parents’ favourite childhood cartoons. God, I’m old.
If you too are old and want to recapture those halcyon glory days of your childhood, or just play a game that’s chill, charming, and funny, I reckon you should really check out The Big Con. Even if you’re in the springtime of youth, it’s just a damn good game that’s well-written and well-made. You can find it on Game Pass, Steam, and Epic. Stay rad.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734522909_The-Big-Con-is-a-charming-funny-crime-caper-about.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-18 11:49:312024-12-18 11:49:31The Big Con is a charming, funny crime caper about scamming your way through the greatest era in human history: The 1990s
Amir Satvat, the recipient of the first “Game Changers” award at this year’s Game Awards, says he’s received “countless hateful messages” as well as “disturbing comments” following his acceptance of the award last week, including antisemetic remarks about his wife.
“I am continuing to do my best to tune this out but it is quite extreme,” Satvat said in a LinkedIn post.
During the event, Geoff Keighley admitted that he’s “struggled” to know how best to address the unprecedented rash of games industry layoffs we’ve seen over the past few years. It was the first time the host and producer directly addressed layoffs at the awards, and the solution he came up with was to honor Satvat, a figure well-known in the games business for his efforts to help laid-off developers find new work.
A brief video segment described how Satvat’s project has helped “place nearly 3,000 people in jobs,” and Satvat accepted the award with a tearful speech in which he challenged the crowd to make the industry better.
Many viewers responded positively to the segment, including viewers in the industry, but some have called it a cynical attempt to keep up the appearance of caring while celebrating the very people responsible for the poor state of the business—the executives in the audience whose companies ultimately fund The Game Awards. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who oversaw Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the subsequent layoffs, is on the show’s advisory board, for example.
Some critics went well beyond denouncing the awards, however: After the ceremony, Satvat himself came under attack for his job at Tencent, where he’s been a business development director for about a year and a half. The suggestion going around social media is that Satvat was presented as a kind of folk hero, but is actually part of the problem—or even a sinister “industry plant” whose heartwarming story was entirely manufactured.
Satvat says that his job wasn’t mentioned during the show because it’s irrelevant, and that he doesn’t work on mergers at Tencent and didn’t at his previous job at Amazon, and has never laid anyone off.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
“I’ve never signed a contract or personally been part of a deal that led to job losses in my career,” wrote Satvat. “In fact, in some instances, like at [Amazon Web Services], I put great effort into making sure hundreds of peoples’ jobs were saved during moments of restructuring.
“I’ve also been accused of creating ‘jail-worthy fraud’ and mocked for ‘just making one spreadsheet people enter info into,’ usually by people who spent all of 8 seconds looking at our site with no understanding of the work we do or the impact we’ve had. We have 15 resources across 5 different resource homes and there is a lot of depth to our community, as any of you who have used it know.”
I was aware of Satvat prior to the awards because, in the course of covering the industry’s layoffs over the past couple years, his name has repeatedly come up in the aftermath of job cuts as the person out-of-work developers should seek out. I’ve understood him to be a well-liked figure whose efforts are genuinely appreciated by game developers who’ve lost their jobs over the past two years.
That impression is reflected in the many positive comments posted about Satvat following his speech, such as in the replies to this post on BlueSky. “Amir got me a union job in Game Dev in 2024,” reads one. “He deserves the world.”
The criticism, insults, and accusations Satvat is otherwise receiving don’t appear to come from any one perspective—good faith criticism of The Game Awards is mixed in with shouting about China, antisemitism, and other staples of internet discourse most associated today with X.
“This can happen to you too when you sacrifice over 2,000 hours of your time to help the industry—this is the ‘reward’ for two years of service,” Satvat wrote. “…I did not want to say anything but there have been too many comments about my family, about my wife, about her religious background, and other things that are way over the line for me not to say anything.”
Satvat says that the post will be his last word on the negative comments, and that he will continue to pursue “positive, public service.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734486864_After-being-honored-at-The-Game-Awards-for-helping-laid-off.jpg7381200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-18 01:12:262024-12-18 01:12:26After being honored at The Game Awards for helping laid-off devs, Amir Satvat says he’s received ‘countless’ hateful messages: ‘This can happen to you too when you sacrifice over 2,000 hours of your time to help the industry’
Reapplying a fresh layer of thermal paste to a graphics card’s GPU is quite easy but dealing with its thermal pads is another matter altogether. Thermal Grizzly reckons it has the perfect solution, in the form of a thick putty that you can slap onto the VRAM and VRM chips, instead of worrying about what thickness of pad you need to buy.
Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are required because the contact surface between a chip and a heatsink/cooler isn’t a perfect match—there are always microscopic gaps between them and the trapped air acts as an insulator. TIMs fill in the gaps, improving the heat flow between the two parts, and come in many different forms, such as a paste, liquid, or even a soft pad.
While it’s a relatively simple task to reapply fresh thermal material to a CPU, graphics cards are more of a challenge due to using two very distinct kinds of TIM: paste for the GPU itslef and thermal pads for the other heat-generating components. The latter vary in size and thickness and trying to figure out what they should be replaced with is quite tricky, unless the manufacturer offers that information in some clear form. Which can be rare.
This is probably why Thermal Grizzly decided to apply its knowledge and experience of TIMs to thermal pads and its solution is simple: Bin the pads, slap on some putty—or in this case, TG Putty.
This takes all of the guesswork out of the thermal pad problem and because thermal putty isn’t electrically conductive, you can be very liberal with how you slap it around the graphics card. Thermal Grizzly says its putty is suitable for filling gaps over a range of 0.2 to 3.0 mm, which should cover all possibilities. All one needs to do first is give the components a thorough clean with isopropanol to remove any grease.
(Image credit: Thermal Grizzly)
However, I do have one criticism of Thermal Grizzly’s putty, well, the different levels of putty anyways. I’ve not tried it yet, but I’m not sure which one would be suitable for testing anyway. There are three variants to choose from—Basic, Advance, and Pro—but all Thermal Grizzly offers in the way of understanding the difference between them is a fairly useless thermal conductivity rating.
The Basic putty is ‘moderate/medium’, the Advance is ‘good’, and the Pro is ‘excellent’—but what does that even mean? How much better is excellent compared to moderate? If you were really keen on using some TG Putty, the obvious solution would be to use the Pro version, simply because it has the ‘best’ thermal conductivity.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
But at $43 for a 30-gram pot, it’s more than twice the price of the Basic putty. That would be justifiable if the putty’s actual thermal conductivity was more than double that of the Basic, but without any specific values, you’re left to simply take Thermal Grizzly’s word on the matter.
I’m definitely sold on the idea of using thermal putty instead of pads with graphics cards, but I need a darn sight more than just one word to make any kind of an informed decision.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/1734450805_Putty-not-pads-Thermal-Grizzlys-new-thermal-materials-might-be.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-12-17 15:47:192024-12-17 15:47:19Putty, not pads: Thermal Grizzly’s new thermal materials might be the best thing for your graphics card just don’t ask for any numbers
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
Essential Website Cookies
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
Google Analytics Cookies
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
Other external services
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
Other cookies
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:
Privacy Policy
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
