[UPDATE 06/01/15: MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES WINDOWS 10 WILL BE AVAILABLE ON JULY 29TH]

Pre-order listings for Windows 10 Home and Professional crop up on Newegg

Newegg has done it again. Just like it did with Windows 8 back in 2012, the e-tailer has spilled the beans on Windows 10 OEM pricing and release date. ZDNet s Ed Bott recently chanced upon a couple of listings for Windows 10 OEM copies on the website.

The listings in question are for Home and Professional System Builder packages priced at $109.99 and $149.99, respectively. Even though it has refused to comment on them, Microsoft does not appear to have an issue with the listings remaining online. You can, in fact, go ahead and pre-order them this very moment, though you will have to wait until at least August 31, 2015 for your order to be fulfilled (i.e., if this information is final).

If you are currently running a qualifying version of Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1, you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 the moment it s available. Should you want to install Windows 10 on a new system, however, you re probably going to need a retail or OEM System Builder license.

According to The Verge, it has been told by well-informed sources that the company is on track to release Windows 10 sometime in July, with the RTM (release to manufacturing) milestone likely in June. But it is likely to be a staggered release, with those in the Windows Insider Program being offered the upgrade ahead of everyone else. The report claims the gap between the release to manufacturing process, where the OS is delivered to OEMs in preparation for new machines, and its availability as an upgrade to download and install will be smaller compared to previous releases.

GameWorks VR is a bagful of proprietary VR tricks

Nvidia announced a suite of virtual reality-specific hardware and software optimizations called VR Direct to coincide with the launch of its Maxwell-based GTX 980 and 970 GPUs last September. It is now giving headset makers and game/app developers a way to leverage all those features — as well as some new ones — in the form of the GameWorks VR software development kit (SDK).

Announced earlier today alongside the GTX 980 Ti GPU (read our review here), GameWorks VR is basically a bundle of APIs, software libraries, and features. Some target game/app developers, while others are meant for VR headset manufacturers.

While most of the features it enables were previously known to us, there is at least one trick that's both new and worth getting excited about. We're talking about multi-resolution shading (MRS), which basically involves rendering different portions of a VR image at different resolutions, thereby easing the load on the GPU and greatly improving performance. Nvidia distinguished engineer Tom Peterson told PCWorld that this can mean "between 25 and 50 percent less pixel work."

Here's a quick rundown of the features straight from the horse's mouth:

• NVIDIA Multi-Res Shading (MRS): An innovative new rendering technique for VR. With NVIDIA MRS, each part of an image is rendered at a resolution that better matches the pixel density of the final displayed VR image. This technology uses the multi-projection architecture of the GeForce GTX 980 Ti GPU to render multiple viewports in a single pass. The result: substantial performance improvements for VR games.
• VR SLI: Provides increased performance for VR apps. Multiple GPUs can be assigned a specific eye to dramatically accelerate stereo rendering. With the GPU affinity application programming interface, VR SLI allows scaling for PCs with two or more GPUs.
• Context Priority:Enables control over GPU scheduling to support advanced VR features such as asynchronous time warp. This cuts latency and quickly adjusts images as gamers move their heads, without the need to re-render a new frame.
• Direct Mode: Delivers plug-and-play compatibility for VR headsets. With Direct Mode, the NVIDIA graphics driver recognizes the headset as a VR display rather than a standard desktop monitor, providing a more seamless user experience.
• Front Buffer Rendering: Lets the GPU to render directly to the front buffer to reduce latency.

Interested developers can now request access to an alpha version of the SDK, which the company says is already in the hands of big names like Oculus, Valve, Epic Games, HTC, and CCP Games. 

Nvidia didn't just show up to Computex 2015 with the new 980 Ti in tow: the graphics company is also showing off seven new G-Sync monitors from Acer and Asus. And if you weren't already excited about G-Sync, these monitors might do it: the spread includes three 4K monitors, three ultrawide options, and a new, very exciting IPS model: the 27-inch 2560x1440, 144 Hz IPS Asus PG279Q.

Let me explain why that last one is a big deal. Our favorite gaming monitor is a G-Sync monitor, the great ASUS RoG Swift. But there's been one major obstacle standing between Nvidia's variable refresh technology and true greatness: color quality. To achieve high refresh rates like 144 Hz, most G-Sync displays have used TN panels, which are fast and cheap. But TN panels suffer when it comes to color quality, offering a more muted picture and poor viewing angles that look even more washed out if you're not looking at them straight on. IPS displays offer far more vivid colors and great viewing angles, but they're more expensive, and generally slower to refresh (hence visible ghosting on some IPS monitors). Finally, it looks like that's changing.

Acer has already released a 144 Hz 2560x1440 G-Sync monitor, which is also a 27-inch model. It costs a steep $800, but Asus introducing its own model may shake things up a bit. And with both Acer and Asus now offering 144 Hz IPS displays, we'll hopefully be seeing more high refresh IPS monitors in the near future, stretching from a more affordable 1080p to a premium 4K.

Here's the full list of new G-Sync monitors coming down the pipe.

Nvidia also announced today that an update for G-Sync will add support for windowed mode. We don't have release dates or prices on any of these monitors yet, but most or all of them should be at Computex, where we'll get some hands-on time to test them out. Eventually they'll join our list of the currently available G-Sync and FreeSync monitors.

If you like PC gaming on a laptop, good news: Nvidia's variable refresh technology, G-Sync, is coming to gaming laptops in the near future. If you like PC gaming on a G-Sync desktop monitor, good news: G-Sync now supports windowed mode. If you like good news, good news: this G-Sync stuff is pretty neat.

Let's tackle laptops first: new systems coming from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and Clevo will be the first to sport 75 Hz refresh G-Sync panels. All the laptops use Nvidia's latest series of mobile GPUs, ranging from the 965M to the 980M. Nvidia told me they'll have 12 models to show at CES, but only gave details on the following:

— Asus G751: GTX 970M/980M, 17.3-inch 1080p panel— Gigabyte Aorus X7 Pro-Sync: GTX 970M SLI, 17.3-inch 1080p panel— Gigabyte Aorus X5, GTX 965M SLI, 15.6-inch 3K panel (probably 2880x1620)— MSI GT72 G: GTX 970M/980M, 17.3-inch 1080p panel— Clevo P770ZM-G: 970M/980M, 17.3-inch 1080p panel— Clevo P750GM-Z: 970M/980M, 15.6-inch, 4K panel

Remember that Clevo's laptops are often modified and rebranded by other laptop companies, so don't be surprised to see a few more gaming laptops popping up with the same specs as those two above.

We don't know what kind of price premium will be attached to these G-Sync gaming laptops, but they shouldn't have the same kind of premium as Nvidia's desktop G-Sync monitors. Nvidia spent some time talking about the technology of G-Sync at a recent meeting, and pointed out that the G-Sync module used in their desktop displays isn't needed in laptops. That G-Sync module is a necessary hardware addition to monitors because their scalers weren't built to control refresh rates and color response the way Nvidia wants. But laptops don't have scalers, since they don't need to support a variety of input options. This allows a direct link between GPU and panel.

The panels used in these laptops are still specifically selected and tested to ensure they can hit that 75 Hz refresh, so we won't be surprised if they cost a bit more than the vanilla models.

Desktop users will also have the chance to use G-Sync in windowed mode with an upcoming driver update. Previously, G-Sync was limited to fullscreen mode, which allowed Nvidia to completely control the refresh rate of a game and control it at a variable rate up to 144 Hz. The Windows desktop would normally refresh at a static rate, like 60 Hz, but the update allows Nvidia to override that static rate and drive the refresh of Windows at the same rate as the game. Nvidia says there's no performance difference between G-Sync in fullscreen and windowed mode. I briefly demoed Grand Theft Auto 5 running in a window, and it did seem to run just as smoothly in a window as it did in fullscreen.

To cap off the wave of G-Sync news, Nvidia also announced seven new G-Sync monitors on the way. You can read more about those here.

Computex, Asia's biggest technology trade show, is about to begin—and Nvidia's kicking it off with the announcement of its newest graphics card, the 980 Ti. Like the 780 Ti of 2013, the new 980 Ti is positioned between Nvidia's high-end option and its flagship Titan. The Titan X, released in March, is based on Nvidia's GM200 Maxwell GPU and offers a slightly absurd 12GB of VRAM for $1000. The 980 Ti is a cut-down version of GM200, with a more reasonable 6GB of VRAM and a more reasonable price: $650 ( 550). And it's available now.

Or, at least, soon: according to Nvidia, the 980 Ti should be available shortly after announcing. That $650 price also includes a free copy of Batman: Arkham Knight thrown in. As the 980 Ti enters Nvidia's lineup, the 980 is dropping from its base price of $550 down to $500.

How does the GTX 980 Ti stack up? You can read our full review here, but if you want a quick spec overview, here's a table for your eyeballs.

It's a good time to be in the market for a new graphics card, but we'd recommend biding your time for the next few weeks. AMD's new cards are coming soon, too, and they may outperform Nvidia's or cause some more price shakeups in the near future.

The "value" alternative for high-end PCs

We all know the type: the ultra-cool guy that has the best hair, wears the right clothes, and drives the hottest car. The problem is that trying to make friends with such a person is difficult… and it will cost you. But did you know that the coolest guy in town has a little brother who's much more down to earth? Oh, he still dresses right and drives a nice car, but he s not quite so ostentatious. His name is GeForce GTX 980 Ti, son of Nvidia and brother to the GeForce GTX Titan X.

There s not a whole lot of surprise with the announcement of the GeForce GTX 980 Ti (henceforth the 980 Ti). We saw the writing on the wall as soon as the GTX Titan X was launched: Great, here s the halo $1,000 luxury GPU that most can only dream of owning; now show us something we might actually buy! The same thing happened with the original Titan and the GTX 780 Ti, though this time there shouldn't be any instances where the less expensive part actually offers superior performance. There s also no improved FP64 mode on Titan X, so saving 30 percent and getting roughly 95 percent of the performance is hardly a bad thing, but let s not jump ahead.

Meanwhile, we re still waiting for AMD s next-generation GPU to make the scene. That means that for the time being, the 980 Ti is going to be even more expensive than the already costly GTX 980. AMD s Fiji GPUs can t possibly come soon enough. Last time, when NVIDIA launched the GTX 780 Ti, it was intended to reclaim the performance crown from AMD s just-released R9 290X, and the price of the GTX 780 dropped $150 in response. We ll have to see what AMD has in store and whether they can help bring some balance—and much-needed competition—to the high-end graphics market in the coming weeks.

To give you a high-level overview of the current competitive landscape, here's a quick rundown of specifications for most of the high-end GPUs:

Comparing the two GM200 cards, other than the drop in the number of shaders/SMMs, the 980 Ti looks a lot like the Titan X. It still has 96 ROPs and a 384-bit GDDR5 interface, though only with 6GB VRAM this time. We re already seeing signs of 4GB VRAM being insufficient, particularly for higher resolution modes like 4K, but with very few cards sporting more than 4GB VRAM most games are unlikely to need 12GB VRAM. 6GB on the other hand, yes, thank you, we can definitely use that! It s also important to note that there are none of the 3.5GB + 512MB segmented memory shenanigans of GTX 970 at play with the 980 Ti; this is a fully enabled GM200 chip as far as the memory interface and cache are concerned. That means in situations where games don t need more than 6GB VRAM, the 980 Ti should be no worse than eight percent slower than the Titan X—and in many cases it will be less than that.

We ve already covered most of the other interesting tidbits for GM200 in the Titan X review. It has eight billion transistors compared to six billion in the GM204 (and 5.2 billion in GK110). The chips are divided into SMMs— streaming multi-processors —each of which contains 128 CUDA cores subdivided into four warp schedulers of 32 cores each. Each SMM also has 16 Texture Units (TMUs), a 96KB memory pool, and another 48KB of shared L1/texture cache. The main difference here is that 980 Ti disables two of the SMMs while keeping everything else in place.

While the basic design of Nvidia s first- and second-generation Maxwell parts is the same, it s important to note that only second-generation Maxwell processors support several new features: DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution), third-generation Delta Color Compression, Multi-Pixel Program Sampling, VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination), VR Direct, Multi-Projections Acceleration, and MFAA (Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing). HDMI 2.0 is also supported on second-generation Maxwell, which means you can do things like drive a 4Kp60 display without resorting to any compression algorithms.

Most of these new features are targeted at high-end gaming, so while it s unfortunate that not all Maxwell GPUs have the same feature set, in practice it s not quite so bad—running a VR device off a GeForce 750 Ti wasn t going to be a great experience with or without VR Direct, and 4K gaming is generally out of reach of even powerful GPUs like the GTX 970, never mind the 750 Ti. We'll look at some of the other new technology Nvidia is announcing today in separate articles, but here our focus is purely on the 980 Ti.

There are some other interesting tidbits at play here. For example, even though the 980 Ti has fewer cores than the 780 Ti, the Maxwell 2.0 cores are more efficient. GTX 980 is already able to match or slightly exceed the performance of the 780 Ti with 2048 cores, so accounting for clock speeds the 980 Ti should be at around 15 20 percent faster than the GTX 980. In situations where the VRAM amounts come into play (e.g., at 4K resolutions), the performance delta will potentially be even greater. Nvidia claims that the 980 Ti is as much as 65 percent faster than the 780 Ti at 4K resolutions, and compared to the GTX 680 they re claiming up to a 3x increase in performance. Those are lofty claims, and realistically, that up to phrase is pretty nebulous; on average, the increase will often be less substantial, except in cases where you run out of VRAM.

The GTX 980 Ti reference design retains Nvidia s proven cooling solution from the Titan X and earlier GPUs. It has worked well and manages to provide good cooling without generating a ton of noise, so it s no surprise to see it appear yet again. Unlike Titan X, however, add-in board manufacturers are free to experiment a bit more with 980 Ti, so while our test GPU looks exactly like Titan X other than the 980 Ti logo emblazoned on its side, we re likely to see open-air coolers as well as blowers from companies like EVGA, Asus, etc.

Test Hardware and Software: We ve Got Upgrades

Before we get to the benchmarks, let s also talk about our new GPU test bed. An introduction might also be in order, in case you missed it. The long and short of it is that we ve got a new senior editor, and along with that we ve upgraded our GPU test bed. You see, our old Sandy Bridge-E system was feeling a bit out of date. We looked at the options and decided that with a new editor it was a good time to upgrade systems. Given the choice between Haswell, Haswell-E, and Broadwell, Haswell-E continues to deliver the best overall combination of performance and features, and the availability of 40 PCI Express lanes can be important. The extra lanes are most useful when you re running multiple GPUs, which we have done with several of our graphics cards. So, we grabbed our recent Turbo build and tossed in a CPU overclock to further reduce any potential CPU bottlenecks, and then got busy testing GPUs on the new platform. Here s our test system:

We ve also updated our benchmarks a bit. In the interest of keeping things mostly consistent, we ve kept all of the existing benchmarks from the Titan X review, but we ve added two new games: Grand Theft Auto V and The Witcher 3. Both titles are quite demanding, and GTAV is interesting in that it will actually show how much VRAM the game needs to store all assets on the GPU. Hint: with all settings maxed (which is how we roll at Maximum PC), only 1920x1080 is able to fit within 4GB VRAM; 2560x1440 requires around 4.2GB VRAM, while 3840x2160 comes in just under 6GB. This should provide some interesting results with the different amounts of VRAM on the cards we re testing.

We ve also started running 3DMark s Fire Strike Ultra and Extreme tests, though the gaming results will continue to be our primary emphasis. Finally, we ll be reporting both average and minimum (or in some cases, 97th percentile) values for the games we benchmark. Average frame rates are great for giving you a general idea of how well a game runs, but performance consistency is also important—a game that runs at 60+fps most of the time but drops below 20fps on occasion would provide a somewhat choppy gaming experience. The minimum frame rates will be particularly telling when it comes to VRAM limitations, where texture thrashing can occur on cards that don t have enough memory.

Enough talk. We know Titan X is a fast card, and there s every reason to expect the 980 Ti will be a very close second. Let s hit the benchmarks.

[Ed—Due to some logistical problems, we were unable to retest Titan X with our new test bed in time for today s 980 Ti launch. We will update our charts as soon as we re able (the card is currently in transit). While many of our earlier results are comparable, the change in drivers and test bed means we need to rerun the benchmarks before we re comfortable publishing specific numbers. Rest assured that from what we ve seen, the performance advantage will not be more than 10 percent in our current benchmark suite.]

GeForce GTX 980 Ti Single GPU Performance

OMG… graphs! Nine games and applications, three resolutions, and nine GPUs. Yes, that is a lot of benchmarks to run, but we like to be thorough. There s a lot to digest here, with individual game results as well as the average performance across all tested games. We ve separated the charts into two galleries: single-GPU comparisons and comparisons against our three SLI/CrossFire configurations. We ll start with the single-GPU charts.

Just as expected, the GTX 980 Ti is a force to be reckoned with. For those with an older GPU like the GTX 770 (which is about 10 percent faster than a GTX 680), the GTX 980 Ti represents an astounding doubling of performance at our 1080p and 1440p settings; if you happen to run 4K games at maxed-out settings, we actually averaged more than a 3x improvement in performance. That s mostly thanks to a couple of games that did very well—Tomb Raider shows a 4.7x improvement and The Witcher 3 shows a 5.8x improvement. Then again, both Batman: Arkham Origins and Grand Theft Auto V failed to run on the GTX 770 with our 4K settings, so in that sense the improvement is even better. Practically speaking, it means you can go from an unplayable single-digit gaming experience at 4K maximum quality on the 770 to a reasonably playable 30+fps experience. Of course, you can get far better 4K performance if you disable AA and turn a few settings down a notch.

If you already have a good GPU, 980 Ti isn t going to provide nearly as much benefit. Compared to the 970, it s a reasonable bump in performance of 55-65 percent, but compared to the GTX 980 it s a much smaller 20 25 percent improvement. The R9 290X continues to show its potential, especially at higher resolutions where on average it s only 10 percent slower than the GTX 980. That makes the 980 Ti 35 40 percent faster than the 290X, but you could buy two AMD R9 290X GPUs instead of the 980 Ti and still have money left for lunch. That s the difficulty Nvidia needs to overcome when it comes to convincing gamers to buy their latest affordable powerhouse. But since you can buy two R9 290X cards or two GTX 970 SLI cards for the price of a single GTX 980 Ti, it s worth looking at how that actually plays out.

GeForce GTX 980 Ti Takes on Multi-GPU

[Ed—We hope to have a second 980 Ti for SLI testing in the near future, at which time we ll add those results. The comparisons for now will be useful for those thinking of purchasing a couple of less expensive GPUs instead of a single 980 Ti. ]

Raise your hand if you were expecting the GTX 970 SLI setup to crush the GTX 980 Ti. Sure, there are definitely cases where the SLI 970 cards win, but there are also times when that single high-end GPU is the better approach. Batman and Witcher don t appear to scale as well with multiple GPUs, but even in the best scenarios, the 970 SLI configuration is only about 20 percent faster than a 980 Ti. Overall, the average performance advantage of 970 SLI is a paltry 4 8 percent, depending on resolution, with higher resolutions scaling slightly better with SLI.

290X CF is at least a clear winner in every benchmark, with no instances where a single GPU beats the two Hawaii cores. AMD has some particularly strong showings at 4K, leading to an overall 30 percent performance improvement at that resolution over the newcomer 980 Ti. Note that at 1080p the benefits of CrossFire are often outweighed by greater CPU usage to hit high frame rates, so if you re using a 1080p display, CrossFire and SLI probably aren t necessary.

However, looking at average frame rates only tells half the story; the minimum frame rate can be just as important. Minimum frame rates are also why we generally prefer a single fast GPU over two slower GPUs running in SLI/CF. There s CPU and system overhead associated with SLI/CF, so while it can provide clear benefits to average frame rates, minimum frame rates will often drop.

Case in point: We just mentioned that on average 970 SLI is roughly six percent faster than the 980 Ti and 290X CF is up to 30 percent faster. Switch over the minimum frame rates and the story changes: On average 970 SLI is almost 10 percent slower than a single 980 Ti—16 percent slower at 4K. 290X CF likewise shows an overall decrease in minimum frames per second of 10 percent, and over 20 percent at 1080p, where CPU overhead is creating a bigger bottleneck.

It might seem a bit surprising how little impact the extra 2GB VRAM seems to have on performance, but minimum frame rates as well as the benchmarks themselves are the explanation. If a game doesn t use more than 4GB VRAM at our benchmark settings, having more VRAM does nothing for you—it s why the 12GB VRAM in the Titan X feels like overkill, at least for now. Since many of our games are a bit older, it s no surprise that they don t need more than 4GB—or even 3GB. 6GB is really forward looking, but it will become increasingly important over the coming year.

GTAV is the poster child for being able to use 6GB VRAM, but it requires some pretty strenuous settings to get there. Max out all the Graphics and Advanced Graphics settings and run at 4K, and the VRAM use is very close to 6GB. That means all of the 4GB cards should show signs of thrashing, and they do. The R9 290X in particular has trouble, and while the 18fps of the 980 Ti is nothing extraordinary, the 4 5 minimum frames per second results for 290X (and 290X CF) show how bad things can get.

Overclocking and Cooling

We haven't had time to fully investigate overclocking, but in limited testing it looks like a 15 percent overclock of the GPU core should be attainable, and at least a 5 percent GDDR5 overclock. That s enough to close the gap with Titan X, though Titan X has similar overclocking potential. [Update: We've finished our overclocked GTX 980 Ti testing.]

We ll be running some additional tests over the coming week, including power and noise testing, but there s nothing particularly noteworthy to discuss in those areas. The 980 Ti has a 250W TDP, and it will make use of it. The cooler meanwhile continues to be the gold standard for a blower-style graphics card, which is really the only way to go (outside of liquid cooling) if you want to run 3-way or 4-way SLI.

Conclusion

The two-word summary of the GTX 980 Ti is this: It s awesome! We didn t provide benchmarks of every game out there, but other titles exist where having 4GB VRAM can cause problems—Assassin s Creed: Unity comes to mind. With the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 both sporting 8GB total RAM, we re seeing many titles push beyond the 2GB mark that has been around for so long. Couple that with 4K displays and we ve rapidly gone from 2GB being enough and 4GB being future-proof to a new level where at least 6GB is necessary if you want to enable maximum quality. Like the Titan X, the 980 Ti makes sure you have enough VRAM, and then it tosses in a bunch of bandwidth and shaders as a bonus.

But as much as we like everything about the GTX 980 Ti, we also have one other word of advice: Wait!

Yes, the GTX 980 Ti performs better than any other GPU besides the Titan X, but AMD s Fiji with HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) should be here within the month. We don t have details on the memory configuration for AMD s Fiji parts, and it s possible they ll stay at 4GB with HBM, but as the saying goes: The proof is in the eating of the pudding. Assuming you didn t jump on Titan X when it launched, waiting another few weeks to see where AMD s cards fall won t hurt. It may end up faster than 980 Ti at a better price, it may be faster with a higher price, or it could end up slower but with a better price. Whatever happens, we can expect Nvidia to respond appropriately. Unless you absolutely have to upgrade right now, in which case the 980 Ti looks primed for the future.

If the new GTX 980 Ti doesn't tickle your fancy, check out recent choices in our guide to the best graphics cards on the market.

Last year I played a multi-generational game of grand strategy Crusader Kings 2 using the A Game of Thrones mod, which transforms the historical medieval setting of CK2 into the continent of Westeros from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels (and the HBO series). My goal was to play as the most minor of lords and experience the conflict and drama of Westeros from the ground floor. Game of Checkers will run on Sundays for ten weeks.

Daisy Dukes it Out

Previously, on Game of Checkers: Wars, wars, wars. Some wars in the greater world, several concurrent ones for control of The Vale, and a number of wars at home for Lady Daisy of The Fingers, specifically over the tiny island called The Paps, which you'd think was a place of major significance. It's not. It's just a stupid rock, and it's no longer my stupid rock, having been captured and held by The Reach.

I'm currently defending the rest of my holdings three different factions who are all trying to install a new ruler of The Vale, which recently claimed independence from The Iron Throne. I hire sellswords every time someone invades, then fire the mercs once we've driven off the attackers. Twice we're on the verge of defeat and are only saved by a passing army supporting the current Lord Paramount. The whole thing is incredible tiresome and frustrating, and seems without end.

Having been saved repeatedly by my liege s army, I decide I owe him one (or two) and start following his forces around. I realize there s a good chance my lands may wind up being invaded while my army is away, but there s nothing I can do without the all those loyal Valemen anyway. We march to the Eyrie, 5,000 strong, to break the siege against an equal force from Crab s Shore. I even capture one of the Crabsmen, but he turns out to be a very poor Lord who can t afford much in the way of ransom. So you know what I do? I execute him on the spot. I think all this war is starting to rub off on me. I'm feeling pretty heartless.

The Iron Throne, meanwhile, decides it's a good time to reclaim The Vale, and since we're all busy killing each other, they're probably right. 45,000 soldiers have arrived in Sunset Keep, one of my holdings, which has become the defacto landing point when anyone wants to invade. Over the past fifteen years, the Iron Thone has swapped royal butts three or four times, and the current queen has just died. King Addison, great-grandson of Robert Baratheon, takes over.

In less violent news, my son eldest son Nobbrick gets married to his betrothed, a woman named Unella, not that either of them had a choice. My son Needrick gets married as well, and his wife immediately produces a child.

I m invited to join the rest of the rebels in this war against The Vale's current leadership. Casting an eye over the burning wreckage of most of the country, I decide to accept. Under the various Lord Paramounts we've had, this place has seen two decades of war. Time for new management.

I join my few remaining troops with the 11,000 strong Eastweald Army of Ser Gwayne and start slaughtering the same Valemen who bailed me out repeatedly not long ago. Within a few months, we re sacking the Eyrie itself, which feels very strange after several generations spent loyally serving it. The war goes on.

At age 85, Daenerys Targaryen dies, and Bran Stark dies of severe stress at the age of 76. They were, I think, the only two characters from the books who were still around. The war goes on.

Nobbrick and his wife have a son. The war goes on.

Nobbrick has another son. Needrick s wife dies. The war goes on.

Daisy turns 40. There have been constant wars in The Vale since she was 15 years old. Finally, finally, The Crab s Shore War for the claim on The Vale ends. Lady Sarya, whoever she is, is now Lord Paramount at age 36, and shortly thereafter becomes Queen of Mountain and Vale.

A Piece of Peace

Peace settles into The Vale, and I'm a little astonished that I've managed to keep all of my holdings through that nightmare (except for The Paps, of course). I take a breath, and then get to work. I change the succession laws back to primogeniture, so my firstborn son Nobbrick will inherit all my titles, because this elective succession thing has just been one huge headache. I hold a feast, attend a tourney, and witness a few weddings. I even have a fling with a knight from my court, Ser Walace. Everyone seems to have a decent opinion of Daisy: all her children, her entire council, and the new Queen. It's an odd feeling.

Some excellent news follows. It turns out my Master of Coin has been stealing gold, apparently for years. I empty his pockets and find I now have enough money—finally—to build a real city on my lands! It'll be a new holding and a better tax base than anything else I've got.

King Addison of the Iron Throne drops dead. This usually signals a massive war as everyone disputes the claim of the heir, in this case, Queen Cerenna Falwell. For the life of me, I cannot even track down who she s related to that might give her a line to inherit. Neither can anyone else, apparently: she s quickly imprisoned and a new King is named, Maric, another great-grandson of Robert Baratheon.

I decide to give my three sons landed titles so they can be my vassals. To Nomordrick, the youngest of my sons, I give Pebble. I give Needrick Sunset Keep. And, I give the newly built Wycliffe City to my heir, Nobbrick. I d like to give something to my daughter Nondonna as well, but apparently the laws won t allow it, so I decide to marry her off to Lord Paramount Steffon of The Reach. He lives on The Paps, so at least she ll be close by. As long as some of my DNA is on that island, I guess it's not a complete loss.

The important thing is, I m back sitting in Scarle Keep in Wycliffe, where this whole thing started with my great-grandfather Ninedrick, and my pleasant and agreeable children are spread out over the rest of The Fingers. Everything seems to have been tied up nicely!

And that s when the Vale once again goes to war. It's Queen of the Vale versus Lord Steffon, my brand new son-in-law. And it's a war over The Paps. Again. It's a bit awkward in that I'm supporting my queen against my daughter's husband, and a bit scary in that The Iron Throne is on Steffon s side.

This could get ugly.

Middlefinger

There are currently 65,000 Iron Throne soldiers spread out over The Vale, though we're winning most of the battles by feeding on smaller detachments and dashing away from the larger ones. When everything finally settles down again, what's the final result? The Vale is still independent, and The Reach still retains The Paps. Again, several years of bloodshed have changed absolutely nothing.

And just when I thought I was done with the Littlefinger family, having outlived Petyr Baelish and having sent his son to serve on The Night's Watch, my Spymaster drops by with some news. Petyr's grandson,  Yohn Baelish, is investigating my legitimacy. Will I never be free of these Middlefingers? There's some worse news attached to this: my own husband, Pearse Waters, is backing this plot.

That's it. I've had enough. I'm not taking this news with a polite smile and a dose of diplomacy. I decide to imprison my husband, but he somehow slips out of the castle before my guards can catch him. Jerk. Annoyed, I decide to go a step further with this third-generation Littlefinger. I'm just going to straight-up assassinate him.

Not only does the attempt fail, but Littlefinger finds out it was me. He blabs about it, naturally, to my Queen. The Queen's response? She arrests me and throws me in prison. Well! That didn't go the way I'd hoped.

Another King arrives on the Iron Throne, Bryenn III, the great-great grandson of Robert. He immediately declares war on The Vale to try to bring it back under his control along with all the other kingdoms. Maybe they'll oust my Queen before she can put me on trial? Or, maybe not. The Iron Throne begins their invasion by sacking Sunset Keep, naturally, then send thousands more soldiers to Wycliffe and begin sacking that.

I am given a trial and await the verdict. It is, shall we say, a harsh one.

Daisy is found guilty. Then she s executed.

Damn those Littlefingers.

Kholat (the link is down at the moment) is a game about wandering around a creepy mountain pass while Sean Bean Sean Beans inside your head. That sounds interesting enough, until you learn the game is based on the mysterious Dyatlov Pass Incident beloved of horror directors and Wikipedia trawlers everywhere. Kholat looks a bit like Dear Esther, and a bit like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. If you like both or either of those things (you of course like Sean Bean), give the new trailer up there a watch.

Kholat is out on June 10th, so incredibly soon. Developers IMGN.PRO describe it as an "exploration adventure game with elements of horror", that asks you to "find out what really happened" to those nine Russian hikers in 1959. Or, to find out what IMGN.PRO think may have happened, anyway.

Ta, RPS.

Hey, you know what? Lego Jurassic World might be alright. I say this because the other Lego games, mostly, were pretty alright, despite some terrible platforming bits and a few times when they weren't based on Lord of the Rings. Lego Jurassic World, coming June 12th, retains the open world co-op and simplistic action of previous entries, but adds playable dinosaurs, those weird hamsterball things you see in all the film trailers, and the opportunity to make your own dinos. It's based on all four films, including the new one, which doesn't look so hot. (But isn't Chris Pratt doing well for himself?)

We can see some of these things in action in the above trailer—which, importantly, features a velociraptor on a motorbike—and which also teases the possibility of underwater swimming sections (playing as a formerly prehistoric creature, natch). I like the idea of exploring the entirety of Isla Nublar—but only if I can do it as Ian Malcolm.

Life, uh, finds a way.

I've always appreciated the availability of console commands for RPGs like Skyrim and Oblivion. Console commands are great for quickly hiding the HUD, using different cameras to take interesting screenshots or videos, and spawning entities (and, sure, for using cheats or goofing around).

The Debug Console Enabler mod unlocks the console in The Witcher 3, allowing you to input commands, and includes a free camera that's perfect for uncoupling yourself from Geralt and taking some striking screenshots. I used it earlier in the week to see what NPCs did when I wasn't physically present, and the results were horrifyingly amusing. I also spied on monsters, like when I flew the camera underwater and spotted some Drowners swimming. They're ugly as hell but actually quite graceful. And, since I wasn't physically there, I could just sort of watch them instead of fighting them.

The free camera can be put to some great uses for screenshots. For the image at the top of this page, I was just sailing along when a basilisk started circling over me. I opened the console (F2) and typed 'testpause', which froze time, then closed the console and activated the free camera (F1). Then I just flew my eyeballs over to the basilisk and snapped that picture. It's hard to tell, but that's Geralt sitting in the boat below. (You can enlarge these pictures by clicking the little icon on the top right corner.) When I was done, I just entered 'testunpause' into the console, time started again, and I led the monster to the nearby bridge so I could watch him fight soldiers through the free camera.

I like Geralt, but it's somehow nice that he doesn't need to be the centerpiece of every picture you take, you know? Here's another shot of the soldiers fighting the basilisk. Just a day in the life.

Naturally, players have been discovering and testing out other console commands. There's one that lets you play as Ciri whenever you want (just type Ciri in the console, and type Geralt to switch back), which is cool, though you can't accept quests. You can also spawn an army of Ciris by typing 'spawn(Cirilla,10)', though army isn't the best word since they don't fight, they just sort of run around with you. 

If you are looking for a fight, however, you can also use the console to spawn various baddies, though from my experience with the game you never have to go far to get into trouble as it is.

There are other commands to change the weather, also useful for screenshots or just for preference. And yes, there are plenty of cheats you can enter to make yourself invulnerable, give yourself items, or increase your stats, just like the codes for Skyrim and Oblivion. I know, I know, the idea of players using cheats drive some people up the wall, but cheats are nothing new and you obviously don't have to use them yourself.

I'd suggest you back up your existing saves before you start using this mod. I've spent several hours with the mod installed and haven't noticed any adverse effects on the game, but better safe than sorry!

The mod, instructions for installation, and a linked list of codes are available here.