u/Dukee_

When I was 15 I bought a 1060 3GB with ONE fan.
That thing was already pushing its limits on newer games, but it definitely tried its best! Eventually the only fan it had started making a terrible noise, so I decided to buy a replacement from AliExpress, but the problem was that I didn't really follow the exact instructions when removing the old fan. Basically, I ended up ripping it off and a piece of plastic from the old fan's base stayed attached to the GPU in some way, and I couldn't place the new one properly. The only solution for the poor 15-year-old me was to leave the new fan hanging, 'cause at the end of the day it's still better than not having a fan😭

That little beast lasted 5 years in the worst state imaginable, and I only changed it in 2023 when the 3070 went down to €350, otherwise I would've kept it for some extra time.

I went through my first heartbreak, became adult, finished school, started uni, dropped out, started working, all this alongside my dear 1060 with 0.5 fans.

R.I.P. GTX 1060 3GB
2018-2023

I was about to play NTE for the first time when I got hit with this popup.

https://preview.redd.it/tlhgp03d9qyg1.png?width=618&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cb312e326dbf3a725fdcdf436be4e772cba9c75

Since I'm not very good at keeping my PC up to date other than GPU drivers, I thought it was a good opportunity to update my BIOS and be good for a while. I go to ASUS website to download the latest version for my PRIME B660-PLUS D4. Update goes smoothly, but when I go to launch the game I get the same popup.

I opened HWiNFO and realized that my microcode version was stuck on 0x3A. I started wondering whether the BIOS update was cumulative or if I had to download an older one that had the microcode update listed in the changes.

I'm not a big AI guy, but I asked Gemini and it said that, since i5-13500 is based on Alder Lake, 0x3A is the latest version available; so that would mean the game is flagging a false positive because it just sees "13th Gen". ChatGPT said the same thing.

I looked up on reddit and saw other people updating their microcode version even with similar CPUs. I'm honestly quite confused, so I figured I'd just ask where people know more than me.

Since I didn't even know the importance of the 0x12B update until now, I'm actually quite worried that I've been running an unoptimized build for 3 years.