Gaming News

Today sees the worldwide launch of the Nvidia RTX4070. The starting price, presumably for the Founders Edition, is £589 - midway between the RTX3070 and RTX3080. If you want to see benchmarks, watch this video on JayzTwoCents - it shows the 4070 beating the 3080 at lower resolutions but lagging a little behind at 1440p and above. However, as more games support DLSS version 3 then the 4070 is likely to jump ahead.

Another important factor in current times is power draw, and amazingly the RTX4070 uses a lot less power than the previous generation. This is covered towards the end of Jay's video.

If you want the official take on the card and technology is utilises, read Nvidia's article covering the release.

With BobLAN fast approaching, it makes sense to use the new feature that was added to the Steam Client last month - file transfers over LAN. To enable it, open up Steam settings, select Download and set the Game File Transfer setting to Steam Friends:

The Counter-Strike community has announced that the major tournaments will switch from CS:GO to CS2 from March 2024. Exciting times! See CS2 on the Twitter

It's only six weeks to the first BobLAN of 2023 - get those upgrades done! The BobLAN page is up and counting down!

The finals of IEM Katowice start today at the quarter final stage, continuing through to Sunday's grand final. Follow the results on the Twitter and watch live on Twitch.

For those who follow pro CS:GO, here are the planned majors for 2023:

• Katowice: Feb 10th - 12th
• Brazil: Apr Apr 17th - 23rd
• Dallas: Jun 2nd - 4th
• Cologne: Aug 4th - 6th
• TBC: Oct 16th - 22nd

The best way to follow these events in on the IEM Twitter, and of course we'll provide updates here.

It has come to light that as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine, the Russian developer of MSI Afterburner has not been paid for almost a year, putting the whole project in jeopardy.

Afterburner is not written by MSI itself, but rather by a third party developer who gets paid by MSI to support the software and put their name on it. He also develops and supports Riva Tuner Stats Server (RTSS) but that has never been officially linked to MSI, despite it being bundled with Afterburner.

If you want to adjust low level driver settings for Nvidia graphics cards, Afterburner is pretty much your only option. Without it, things like undervolting and overclocking would not be possible - this is a big deal if it stops being supported and ends up being incompatible with future Nvidia drivers.

For more info, watch the full JayzTwoCents video on youtube.

Our Server Instructions page has been updated to capture the steps required to create a private PUBG server. This has proved popular both at the last LAN and also on Friday nights when there are more than four players. Once you've created a server for a given set of options you can save the config, making it really quick to create future servers.

As discussed back at the last LAN, the dates for the November 2023 BobLAN have been confirmed. The event will run from Thursday 9th November through until the Sunday, although no doubt there will be a Wednesday kit-drop and setup evening again.

As the event draws near, the usual BobLAN page will appear.

Normally a BobLAN write-up would consist of a list of comedy events that occurred over the weekend. Whilst this weekend was not short of comedy events (eg the frog landing on Trebz's desk, or Themy being comatose by mid-afternoon) it was the collection of quotes that will be the focus of this one.

Before that, let's look at some of the successful gaming events of the LAN. The private PUBG servers were a real hit, although we could do with some smaller maps, or to shrink the initial playzone. The BF2042 multiplayer was promising, despite some problems joining games and only having squads of four players. The other newcomer was GRID Legends, which whilst not a successor to Autosport was nevertheless quite entertaining, especially for those who don't drive every Tuesday. I think all three of these will fearure next time, especially as BF2042 will be on GamePass by then.

Now, here are those quotes:

• Bean: "No one uses the term rubber Johnnies any more"
• Mes: "Come on Al, let's go hunt some pussies and blow some heads off"
• Bynar: "The testicles have seen better days as well... a bit distended"
• Bobble: "I got a knob caught in my arse"
• Daz: "I just admit that I got Bob off there"
• Trebz: "What you did Themy was you glanced my rear"
• Trebz: "That's just hard, I prefer it softer"
• Dan: "Choppers out Bob"
• Voltz: "I wall banged Stevie"
• Voltz: "That was a reverse parzival"
• Daz: "Take 'em from the front and behind. Just how they like it"
• Dan: "It's a 14 inch meaty one"
• Q: "Bynar!! You Rammed me Into the wall"
• Bynar: "Because you took my backend out"
• Bynar to Themy: "You haven't got it out this weekend yet have you?"
• Daz: "That's the biggest joystick I've ever seen" ... "That's enormous, that's so heavy"
• Wij: "You completely scraped my insides out"
• Pup: "From both ends! Painful"
• Trebz: "Can you heal me downstairs pup?"
• Q: "Fuck me he's huge. This is gonna hurt"
• Bynar: "Now that! Was an unsafe re-entry"
• Themy: "When your arse comes out your face. That's when you know it's over"
• Trebz" "So how far would you shove the shotgun up your arse?"
• Parz: "4.6 inches"; Daz: "That's weirdly specific"; Parz: "No I meant six inches"
• Max: "It's ok, I'll pinch him round the back"
• Themy: "I'm stuck up pup"

As usual, the write-up will end with a massive thanks to Bob and Lynda, who once again opened their house to us lot. You certainly put on a great event, as evidenced by the turnout. It was great to see everyone - can't wait til April for the next one!!!

After an action-packed setup day, we're now well into Friday gaming. Despite EA issues we managed to play a game of Battlefield 1. Follow the schedule at BobLAN 2022.3

The wait is almost over, and we are now into BobLAN week. It officially starts on Thursday, however there are a few dropping kit off and staying over on Wednesday - does the beer spreadsheet allow for that?!

If you want a fix of pro CS:GO ahead of BobLAN, head over to the IEM channels on Twitch. Remember, utility is quite important!

It is just over 2 weeks to the final BobLAN of the year, so it's time to finalise those upgrades and get your rigs in top form. Wired keyboards are recommended. As always, you will be able to follow the LAN on Discord and via the BobLAN 2022.3 page

Nvidia's press conference today announced a date for the RTX4090 and approximate dates for the RTX4080 and RTX4070. The 4090 will launch on 12th October and set you back $1599, only $100 up on the 3090. The 4080 launches in November and will be around $899 although the different flavours offered by the AIBs will see quite a variation in final pricing.

For more details, some numbers and a slice of common sense, go watch JayzTwoCents video on the upcoming releases.

Some good news for once - following some maintenance work by Virgin on 5th September, Bob's internet (and Daz's) seems a whole lot better. As you all know, he's been plagued by awful connections on Friday and Tuesday gaming evenings but that all seems to have been fixed (at the expense of my own!). You can check Bob's BQM Graph via the link in Discord for an up-to-date view of his connection.

Nvidia are holding another of their special events on Tuesday 20th September. The last one was to announce the launch of the 3000 series graphics cards, so the expectation is that this year's event will be for the 4000 series. If you are interested, catch the event live over at Nvidia when the time comes.

To mark 10 years of CS:GO, ESL have put together a compilation of some of the best moments from competitive CS over the period. Well worth a watch over on Youtube

FaZe Clan win IEM Cologne 2022 and it couldn't have been any closer. Twitch will be streaming the reruns over the coming days - watch it if you get the chance!

The final 6 teams for the playoffs for IEM Cologne 2022 have been decided following this weekend's group stages. As usual, you can follow the event starting on Friday 15th July on the @IEM Twitter and also over on Twitch