Latest News - Page 5

NVIDIA's RTX Neural Texture Compression technology, which leverages AI to significantly reduce the VRAM footprint for game assets while maintaining image fidelity, is the sort of tech we need right now. In its most extreme use case, it can reduce texture sizes by up to 90%, which would make 8GB or 12GB of VRAM enough for 4K gaming.

With the current memory crisis driving GPU prices up, it makes sense for game developers to look to technologies like RTX Neural Texture Compression alongside DLSS as ways to improve performance and image quality for millions of gamers. NVIDIA has made the RTX Neural Texture Compression SDK available to game developers for a while now, but the latest RTX Neural Texture Compression (NTC) SDK v0.10.0 BETA release (available on GitHub) adds support for RTX Spark and Windows on Arm.

RTX Spark is NVIDIA's first SoC product for premium laptops and mini PCs, which combines a 20-core NVIDIA Grace ARM processor with an integrated RTX Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores. Although RTX Spark laptops are expected to launch with combined memory pools of up to 128GB, RTX Neural Texture Compression is still a worthwhile addition.

Earlier today we reported on a deal that fell through between Chinese memory manufacturer CXMT and Apple, where the latter was attempting to secure cheaper pricing for DDR5 memory that it needs for its next-gen iPhone 18 products powered by the 2nm A20 chip.

According to journalist and insider Tim Culpan, the situation is getting dire, with Apple "scrambling" to secure memory for its big iPhone 18 and foldable iPhone Ultra launch that's weeks away. The reporter calls the situation "fascinating" because TSMC is reportedly holding on to over $1 billion of "excess inventory" because it's still waiting on DRAM to complete packaging.

Apple's next-gen 2nm-powered iPhones will reportedly feature chips with Integrated Fan-Out Package on Package (InFO-PoP) technology that stores memory directly above the main SoC. The result is a smaller physical footprint as there's no need for a separate LPDDR5X module.

Nintendo's first-quarter results for fiscal year 2027 showed a jump in profits. While revenue fell 9.5% to 517.8 billion yen, net profit jumped 53.5% to 147.4 billion yen, substantially beating analyst estimates of 74.4 billion yen.

Nintendo said sales of its Switch 2 console, released last summer, "maintained strong sales momentum," while games such as Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Star Fox, and Pokémon Pokopia "performed steadily." However, that was not enough to offset an overall decline in sales compared with the same period last year.

Instead, profits were boosted by a one-time U.S. tariff refund that Nintendo had previously recorded as a cost of sales, providing a significant lift to the company's bottom line. The refund followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in February that declared Trump's Liberation Day tariffs illegal, after which Nintendo filed a lawsuit seeking a full reimbursement.

Minecraft is officially coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on October 27, giving one of the best-selling games of all time a native version built for Nintendo's newer hardware. The game has been playable on Switch 2 through backward compatibility since launch, but this is a proper port optimised specifically for the console.

The headline addition is Vibrant Visuals, which will be enabled by default on Switch 2. The graphical upgrade brings enhanced lighting, volumetric fog, improved water reflections, directional lighting, and more detailed shadows, all while keeping the blocky style intact.

The Nintendo-exclusive Super Mario Mash-Up pack is also getting the Vibrant Visuals treatment, which is a nice touch for a piece of content that has always been unique to the platform. It is worth noting that Vibrant Visuals will not be available in split-screen play or with certain Marketplace Worlds and content.

Sony is now placing warning stickers on PS5 console boxes informing buyers that physical game discs are on their way out. YouTuber Behind the Games was among the first to share an image of the label, which was provided by a trusted source, with a video following shortly after.

The same warning text has since been spotted on European Amazon listings for the PS5, suggesting Sony added it to comply with consumer protection laws in those regions.

The sticker reads: "From January 2028, newly released games on PlayStation will be available for purchase on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital format only. Discs for games released before January 2028 can continue to be played on this console." The wording matches what Sony published in its July 1 blog post announcing the end of physical disc production. The same text is now appearing on Sony's official PS5 product and purchasing pages.

QuakeCon 2026 is currently live right now, and the iconic franchise is celebrating 30 years of pixelated FPS chaos in style.

id Software and MachineGames today released a new free content update for Quake that adds fresh playable content to the game on all platforms. It's part of Quake's new Dawn of the Machine episode, which offers a sizable campaign across 19 playable maps littered with new enemy variants and weapon types.

The update also introduces a kind of roguelite gametype for Quake, allowing users to replay levels in an endless loop with "persistent health and ammo upgrades" spread across the maps. This feels like another instance of Xbox and Microsoft simultaneously exploring new business models while also celebrating the anniversaries of key franchises, and we could see this concept of new content for old games continue moving forward.

Activision's latest Call of Duty ports have sold multi-million copies on PlayStation, showing Microsoft's willingness to use nostalgia where it counts.

Microsoft and Activision made a surprise move in July by releasing two decades-old Call of Duty games on PlayStation. Both Black Ops I and II were launched on modern PlayStation consoles for the first time, in the middle of a hot summer month, for an affordable $20-40 price. This was the first time these games have been playable on PlayStation since the PS3 era, and the potent combination of nostalgia and pent-up demand led to an explosion of sales and engagement.

Predictably, this led to massive sales; PS Store rankings showed high positioning for the Black Ops duo, and new estimates from Alinea Analytics indicate the games could have made over $400 million in sales on PS4 and PS5.

A PC enthusiast just built a free tool in his spare time that reportedly protects RTX 5090 owners better than anything the GPU industry has shipped so far. Interestingly, he did it by leaning on AI coding help, which may rub some people the wrong way.

Reddit user Khalid released "12VHPWR Guard," a small Windows application that reads per-pin current draw straight off the I2C bus on ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080, RTX 5090, and ROG Matrix RTX 5090 cards.

If any single pin pulls more than 9.5A for over 15 seconds, below ASUS's own 9.2A warning threshold, the tool force-closes background apps and shuts the system down. The current threshold and time window are both adjustable, and the app leans on HWiNFO's shared memory as a backup if it can't talk to the sensors directly.

EA is now officially a private company, and the $55 billion leveraged buyout is complete as the group now prepares for major cost-cutting.

Electronic Arts is now private for the first time since the entertainment group's founding in 1982. After months of regulatory scrutiny from worldwide trade commissions, the deal was given the greenlight, seeing three major investors taking control of EA: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, who principally funded the deal with 93% of backing, as well as firms Affinity Partners and Silver Lake.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson will stay onboard to lead the publisher into the future of gaming, which seems to be quite lean. The publisher rounded out its previous fiscal year with $8 billion net bookings, the highest in company history, driven by half a billion dollars in microtransaction deferrals.

Apple's attempt to squeeze a cheaper DRAM deal out of Chinese memory maker CXMT has reportedly fallen apart. This has added another wrinkle to the company's supply chain headaches ahead of its biggest launch window of the year.

According to a report from Korean outlet Digital Daily, along with Tim Culpan's Culpium newsletter, CXMT turned down Apple's request for discounted pricing on LPDDR5X memory. Apple was reportedly hoping to bring CXMT in as a third supplier alongside Samsung and SK hynix, using the extra option as leverage to keep prices down across its existing partners.

That plan doesn't seem to be working. CXMT is apparently quoting prices in line with, or even above, what Samsung and SK hynix already charge Apple. Its domestic customers, namely Huawei and Xiaomi, have reportedly booked much of its output well in advance, and CXMT doesn't seem to need Apple's business badly enough to cut a deal.

New GTA 6 footage will premiere on Netflix, a paid subscription, on Thursday, August 27 at 3PM EST, Rockstar Games has announced. Rockstar confirms that a free stream will go live six hours later at 9PM.

Take-Two Interactive's Rockstar Games has teamed up with streaming titan Netflix to introduce what could be a new model for multimedia synergy. New footage for the most anticipated game of all time, GTA 6, will be shown on Netflix later this month. Reports indicate that the preview, which is officially called an "extended look," could in fact be quite lengthy--there's evidence the footage could last around 30 minutes.

"Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look will premiere on Netflix Thursday, August 27 at 3 p.m. ET and will also launch on the official Rockstar Games YouTube channel and the Grand Theft Auto VI site at 9 p.m. ET on August 27."

Modders have been going to town creating custom 3D-printed faceplates for the Steam Machine since the console's debut. But this latest faceplate mod, shared by NefariousnessWhole25 on the r/steammachine subreddit, is arguably one of the best mods for the Steam Machine that integrates the Steam Controller's magnetic puck onto the front of the console.

The faceplate for this mod features the back of the Steam Controller's clamshell molded into it, enabling the controller to fit perfectly into the faceplate, aligning it with its magnetic charger. The faceplate features a cutout for the magnetic charging puck to fit inside that the Redditor says is held in by nothing more than friction. Earlier revisions reportedly used a shelf underneath the controller to help prop it up, but the redditor states that the charging puck's magnets proved to be powerful enough to keep the controller elevated inside its shell.

The cord for the charger is routed neatly behind the faceplate using an L-shaped Type-C adapter to hide the cable from the front. If docking the Steam Controller to the front of the Steam Machine is not enough, the faceplate is also designed to work with a stand, turning the faceplate into a DIY prop for the Steam Controller.

If you thought the GTA 6 launch date was locked in at this point, a former Rockstar employee has warned that we may not be out of the woods just yet in terms of another potential delay.

As Dexerto noticed, Indy100 fired over some questions (via Covers.com) to an animator who used to work at Rockstar. That ex-staffer, Mike York, was part of the team that made GTA 5 and said that he "would not be shocked at all" if GTA 6 experienced another delay.

Note that this isn't based on any inside source that York still has at Rockstar, or leaked info, and the animator made it clear that this is simply based on his previous experience at the developer.

The Gears of War: E-Day Open Beta kicks off this weekend, and with some players already gaining Early Access to the game, we now know that Gears of War: E-Day will ship with a built-in benchmark tool. The tool will also be available on PC for gamers jumping into the Open Beta, and we've also learned that the game includes a graphics setting above 'Ultra' called 'Ludicrous.'

Developer The Coalition built Gears of War: E-Day from the ground up to take full advantage of the latest Unreal Engine 5 engine, from advanced lighting to ray-tracing, destructible environments, and significantly more geometry and detail than any previous Gears game. This includes Unreal Engine's MegaLights, Lumen, and Nanite, and in terms of cutting-edge visuals, the 'Ludicrous' graphics mode is shaping up to be something more for the next-generation of PC gaming hardware.

And we say that because it basically brings the powerful GeForce RTX 5090 to its knees, with it unable to hit a steady 60 FPS in 4K even with upscaling. Per the benchmark results from a new video posted by Elegant Egotist, who got early access to the Open Beta on Steam, with the 'Ludicrous' setting, the GeForce RTX 5090, paired with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU, only manages to hit an average frame rate of 44.5 FPS.

QuakeCon 2026 kicks off this weekend, with the event once again offering PC gamers the opportunity to take part in the world's biggest LAN party alongside celebrating id Software franchises like DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein.

This year NVIDIA and its GeForce RTX brand are once again a major QuakeCon 2026 partner, and in addition to sponsoring a $10,000 mod contest and giving away GPUs, it's also offering attendees a pretty special deal.

Yes, per the headline, NVIDIA will be at the event selling Founders Edition models of its GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards at MSRP. While supplies last, PC gamers at QuakeCon 2026 will be able to pick up a GeForce RTX 5070 for $549 USD, a GeForce RTX 5080 for $999, or a GeForce RTX 5090 for $1,999. If you've been following GPU prices, especially with the current memory and component crisis affecting all corners of the PC gaming hardware market, picking up a Founders Edition GPU at its original MSRP launch price represents a fantastic deal.

Before the memory crisis took hold as the main discussion point for PC hardware price increases, recent tariffs imposed by the US government on imports led to across-the-board price increases. With the tariffs ending and companies securing refunds, it's not a surprise that not everyone is passing on these savings to consumers, which is why PC cooling company Arctic's response to the tariff refund is one worth highlighting and celebrating.

As part of a new blog post titled 'The Arctic Promise, The True Value Rollback,' the company outlines its plans for the monetary windfall and how it's maintaining its promise and commitment to reversing the impact the US trade tariffs had. "Following the refund of previously collected tariffs, Arctic has already begun lowering prices across its entire US product lineup," the company confirms.

What makes this move even more impressive is that Arctic absorbed as much of the tariffs as it possibly could, which meant only certain items actually saw a price increase. "Rather than only adjusting the specific items that saw a price increase, every recovered dollar is returned to the market through across-the-board retail price cuts, fulfilling our promise to the PC building community," the company continues.

Thanks to a new report from Counterpoint, we've got an updated look at the global DRAM market as of Q2 2026. In recent years, there's been a seismic shift in the DRAM market due to the AI boom and manufacturing capacity being gobbled up by data centers and the big AI and tech companies. For consumers, it's led to a situation where supply can't meet demand, exacerbated by steep increases in memory prices.

When it comes to global DRAM revenue share, that is the money memory manufacturers are making: the big three have maintained their leadership in Q2 2026. The big three are Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron, and Samsung is the global leader with a sizeable 39% market share. This sees the company return to the top spot after ceding it to SK hynix last year, thanks to the demand for memory, price increases, and the company expanding its HBM segment for AI.

Although its market share dropped, SK hynix takes the second spot with a 26% share, followed closely by Micron with 25%. Perhaps the bigger story is Chinese memory company CXMT's rapid growth over the past year, which has seen it secure an impressive 7% of the global DRAM market.

The RAMpocalypse, or memory crisis, is very real, and with seemingly no end in sight, if you've been following the notebook and laptop market this year, you'll notice that a lot more devices are being sold with 16GB and even 8GB of memory. For the foreseeable future, it's looking increasingly likely that PC hardware with less memory will be the new norm, and this is a reality that Microsoft is keenly aware of.

As spotted by Windows Latest, the company behind Windows 11 is quietly removing references to 32GB of RAM as a recommendation for the best Windows experience. These references to 32GB of RAM being recommended were found in a few different Windows Learning Center articles, including one all about optimizing your PC for gaming.

That article has now been removed, which previously contained the line "32GB is ideal for serious players who run the most demanding titles or use heavy mods." Now, this doesn't change the fact that having 32GB of RAM on a Windows 11 PC built primarily for PC gaming is, in fact, "ideal." But it does point to Microsoft's very serious and very recent push to optimize the operating system for devices with 8GB and 16GB of memory.

EA just closed its record $55 billion buyout, and it looks like the bill for that deal is about to land squarely on its employees. According to journalist Jason Schreier on Bluesky, EA has told debt investors it plans to cut $700 million in annual costs, including $170 million in "organizational efficiencies."

Schreier notes EA's annual EBITDA sits around $1.5 billion, which should technically cover the roughly $1.8 billion a year in interest payments tied to the $18 billion in debt used to fund the buyout. Even so, EA apparently wants that debt paid down faster, and as Schreier put it bluntly, that means mass layoffs.

This wouldn't be new territory for EA. The publisher already cut 300 to 400 jobs in 2025, including around 100 at Respawn Entertainment alongside a canceled Titanfall project, then followed that up in March 2026 with layoffs across its Battlefield studios, hitting Criterion, DICE, Motive, and Ripple Effect.

Someone just found an RTX 3050 sitting in a thrift store bin for less than the price of a coffee, and honestly, stories like this feel like the only good news coming out of the GPU market lately.

According to Reddit user u/Nervous_Highlight752, they picked up an MSI GeForce RTX 3050 Ventus 2X 6G OC at a Value Village thrift store in Canada for CAD $4.99, which works out to roughly US $3.50. The card is used and a few years old, but it apparently powers on and works fine. That same MSI model is still selling for around $209 on Amazon right now, so this is close to a 98% discount if you actually needed one.

The buyer says the plan is to drop the RTX 3050 into a second PC that has been limping along on an ancient GTX 750 Ti, a pretty solid upgrade path for basically pocket change. The RTX 3050 is not a powerhouse, but it still handles most games at 1080p on medium to high settings without much trouble, and it remains one of the few Ampere-era cards NVIDIA keeps in production because budget GPU demand refuses to die down.