Amazon's New World looks like it could be the biggest new MMO hit of the summer. It launched a closed beta, which became available on Steam Tuesday, and it has already grown to be in the top five biggest games on the PC. According to SteamDB it has hit about 190k concurrent users for two days in a row – rubbing shoulders with the likes of Grand Theft Auto V and Apex Legends. New World seems to be a hit on Twitch too.
While New World is very popular straight out of the gate, it isn't without its teething issues, of course. One of the most interesting and tragic sounding issues it seems to be having is that it could potentially overload your GPU rather swiftly and send it to the silicon graveyard.
A particular GPU which seems to be vulnerable to the New World bricking issue is the EVGA GeForce RTX 3090. ComputerBase (German) reports that there are multiple problem reports on the New World Forums, on Reddit, and among Twitch streamers like Gladd.
Various users and tech sites have pondered over what could be causing this problem to occur for users of these powerful graphics cards. The consensus seems to be that the game currently has an uncapped framerate when users are in the menus, before or between actual gaming sessions - and this is a problem for the EVGA RTX 3090 design for some reason. Until Amazon or EVGA do something about this problem, it is recommended that users of powerful Nvidia GPUs set their own global FPS limit in the Nvidia Control Panel.
EVGA hasn't commented on the above problem at the time of writing (it seems to be too busy celebrating its 22nd anniversary) but Amazon's New World social media team seems to suggest that the raised issues are statistically irrelevant, asserting that "The New World Closed Beta is safe to play". Nevertheless, it is issuing a patch very shortly, which "caps frames per second on our menu screen".
New World is scheduled to be generally released on 31st August. If you want to join in the beta pre-order on Steam, Amazon, or complete the tester sign up on newworld.com.
Amazon Prime gaming freebies
While we are on the topic of Amazon and PC gaming, it is worth mentioning that if you have Amazon Prime you will be able to grab Battlefield 1, and Battlefield 5, for free. The Battlefield 1 promo is now live and will be available to grab until 4th August. From 2nd August until 1st October you will be able to grab Battlefield 5.
If you don't have Prime right now, you can probably get a free one-month trial. When I visited this page, I was offered one, but remember to cancel before the month is out to avoid getting auto-charged £7.99 or whatever it costs per month in your region.
