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We're starting to see several native PC ports for classic Nintendo 64 games, with the latest covering Rare and Nintendo's 1999 3D platformer, Donkey Kong 64. DK64 Rekongpiled recompiles and recreates the original game's source code in a modern format that most operating systems and PCs can recognize, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Although a backup or ROM of Donkey Kong 64 is required for art assets and music, being a native port means this version of the game isn't emulating N64 hardware. That opens the door to proper modding and support for modern systems. Here, that means high-resolution rendering, a widescreen presentation, and an uncapped FPS for smooth performance. As the trailer shows, DK64 Rekongpiled runs in 4K at 200 FPS on a modern PC.

This port has an interesting backstory: the project's development accelerated in response to a separate effort to recompile Donkey Kong 64 with vibe coding, or AI. And with that, contributor 2dos confirms that this DK64 Rekongpiled has been created with "no generative AI used at any point in the process."

NVIDIA's latest game ready driver 616.56 reportedly delivers up to an 8.1% performance improvement in path tracing workloads, making this one of the rare times where an NVIDIA driver brings noteworthy performance improvements over previous driver iterations. The performance improvements were discovered by PC hardware enthusiast Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein on X, who benchmarked the driver with an RTX 5080 in Geekbench 7, Blender, and 3DMark.

3DMark's path tracing test is where the headline 8.1% performance result was achieved. In Geekbench 7, performance improved by up to 5.5% in its CUDA test and 21.7% in its OpenCL test. Blender saw a 6.1% improvement in version 5.2.0, and Cinebench R26 saw a 6.7% improvement in its GPU benchmarking mode.

However, the driver offers very minimal performance improvements in games and AI workloads, which will be disappointing mostly to gamers. Doederlein recorded a mere 2% performance improvement in Horizon Forbidden West, and 2.5% uplift in Dying Light 2. Similarly, in 3DMark gaming-focused Steel Nomad and Speedway benchmarks, the performance uplift for both with driver 616.56 was only 1.8% and 2.5% respectively.

Sony is introducing a new app that brings free TV shows and movies natively to the PS5, but the service is funded via advertising.

Sony today announced Live TV on PS5, a new app described as a "free ad-supported experience from Sony Pictures Television." The app will include free access to over 100 live TV channels as well as a vault of TV shows and movies. This offering sees Sony finding synergy in its entertainment divisions while also tapping a new well of digital monetization across the PlayStation 5's growing 90 million+ installed base.

"Discover movies, TV shows, anime, sports, news, creator-led programming and more - free with ads and no subscription required."

Rockstar and YouTuber TGG have revealed new details about how money works in GTA 6, confirming details like being able to rob any store in the game.

The latest wave of GTA 6 details outline how the criminal economy works in the game, and how it's woven seamlessly into the game's story. A new video from TGG explains various GTA 6 mechanics, including a gameplay loop that will see Jason and Lucia robbing stores, fencing stolen drugs, jewels, and cash, and turning that into spendable money to fuel their Bonnie and Clyde caper.

GTA 6 offers lots of ways for players to make money, with five loosely outlined levels of robberies that range from ganghouses full of illicit drugs, money, and guns to classic bank and jewelry store stick-ups. Making cash isn't optional though--you'll need to make enough money to progress the story, Rockstar confirms. Rockstar also acknowledged that there wasn't enough to spend money on in GTA V, which is good news for fans.

At Gamescom 2026, Xbox and developer Playground Games shared a new extended 18-minute gameplay deep dive for the highly anticipated Fable, which is on track for a February 23, 2027 release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The gameplay video notes that the footage comes from a pre-release PC build of the game, running on 'Ultra' graphics settings, which you can check out below.

It's a notable showing, with the gameplay showcasing the game's largest town, Bowerstone, quests, and some combat. From NPCs to the various buildings, foliage, lighting, and animation, it's all technically impressive, too, giving us a glimpse at what the game will look like running on a high-end PC. And for the PC version, even though the game is still months from release, Playground Games has detailed the PC requirements.

As seen in the gameplay video, playing the game at 4K 60 FPS with Ultra settings, you'll need either a GeForce RTX 5080 or GeForce RTX 4080. You'll also need a powerful CPU, either a Ryzen 9 7900X or Intel Core i9 13900K, indicating that the game's various simulation aspects, physics, and hard-crafted NPC behaviors will be CPU-heavy.

Although NVIDIA formally released its impressive DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction update last week, leveling up path tracing image quality and detail in a big way, the biggest DLSS story this past week has been the DLSS 5 leak. Discovered in the files for the upcoming NBA 2K27 release from Take-Two, this early version of NVIDIA's new DLSS Neural Rendering technology has now been modded into several games, and the overall discourse has shifted from the "AI slop" narrative of its debut to it being a game changer.

With the ability to adjust the intensity of the effect, which leverages a powerful AI model to make lighting and detail more cinematic by simulating advanced path-tracing-like effects, we've seen several impressive examples of it in games like Control, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, and Skyrim.

Modders over on the RenoDX Discord have also been able to get DLSS 5 working on older GeForce RTX 40 and even GeForce RTX 30 Series hardware, even though the assumption is that it's going to be exclusive to the GeForce RTX 50 Series. However, as the GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' generation lacks native FP8 support, the performance hit is huge. So, if we're seeing performance cut in half with DLSS 5 on a GeForce RTX 5080, performance basically evaporates on a GeForce RTX 3080.

At Gamescom 2026, developer CD Projekt Red confirmed it is targeting a 2028 release window for the highly anticipated The Witcher 4, the first game in a new trilogy. Running on Unreal Engine 5, the game is set to debut on current-gen consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S) and PC. Plus, with the game on track for 2028, there will probably be a version for PlayStation 6 and Xbox Helix.

Although The Witcher 4 is still a couple of years off from release, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that there will be a physical edition of the game. Yes, you'll be able to walk into a retail store on day one to pick up your physical copy. However, when it comes to what's inside the box for those picking up The Witcher 4 on PS5, that all depends on Sony.

Speaking with The Game Business, CD Projekt joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski told the outlet that the studio has "no influence on the policies of the first parties," and that if Sony lives up to its promise of halting game disc production at the beginning of 2028, then The Witcher 4's boxed retail copy will ship without a disc.

For consumers in the PC, gaming, and mobile space, the current memory and storage crisis due to the AI boom and all capacity for high-performance chips going to data center projects has left many wondering "how long?" That is, with exponential price increases affecting retail hardware, alongside shortages, when will things, more or less, return to normal?

Speaking with Reuters about SK hynix's U.S. operations, where its new Indiana facility is set to begin "volume production" of its next-gen HBM4E memory chips, CEO Kwak Noh-Jung also briefly addressed the current memory capacity, demand, and supply situation affecting the broader technology market.

With "no clear signs of ⁠a memory downturn," it's expected that the current memory crisis will continue through to the end of 2030. Beyond 2030, there's no expectation of a sharp decline in demand, but rather a more gradual slowdown. According to the report, Kwak Noh-Jung isn't concerned about the company's post-2030 period.

NVIDIA's DLSS 5 AI upscaler is catching a lot of flack from gamers, but developers like Warhorse's Daniel Vavra praise the new technology.

Thanks to the most recent DLSS 5 leak, there are tons of AI-altered images of popular games floating around the internet. Cloud Strife looks like Kate McKinnon in an SNL sketch, everyone in Skyrim became beautiful, Miranda Keys from Halo 2 gets a soap opera filter, and even Joel's daughter Sarah from The Last of Us looks a little bit like a grown Steve Buscemi.

While DLSS 5 is mostly being lampooned by players, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 developer Daniel Vavra sees real promise in the visual tech. The Warhorse Studios boss recently spoke out on DLSS 5 on Twitter, saying that it enabled visuals that were much closer to the team's original artistic vision for the game--especially when it comes to shadows and lighting.

Halo fans are reacting to what the classic FPS games look like with DLSS 5 applied, and the visual changes can be dramatically off-putting.

NVIDIA's DLSS 5 AI tech was recently leaked out thanks to NBA 2K27, and gamers have been applying the new tech to a bevy of games to see what happens. This has turned into a kind of great social hunt as enthusiasts are using DLSS 5 to warp and change what gamers see on the screen, and we've seen games like Final Fantasy, Skyrim, and even Halo get morphed.

The latter shows what this tech can do for decades-old games. Youtuber WreckedElk applied DLSS 5's max settings to the opening Pillar of Autumn mission of Halo CE, and the results are a major departure from the overall tone and feel of the original game.

CD Projekt is working on The Witcher 4's platforms at the same time to make sure the game "actually works" when it ships on 9th generation consoles.

The Witcher 4 is due out in 2028 and CD Projekt is taking its development seriously. Ciri's AAA return is the start of a new saga of games, and the devs want to make sure these products have smooth launches light years away from the Cyberpunk controversy.

That's why CD Projekt is simultaneously developing The Witcher 4 specifically for each console and platform; Cyberpunk prioritized PC and tried to downscale everything from there, but The Witcher 4 evens out the priority, and the studio tackles individual issues as they arise. In a recent interview with Game Developer, CD Projekt co-CEO Michal Nowakowski expresses his confidence in TW4's current build on consoles and PC.

GTA 6 is expected to run at 30FPS, even on the PlayStation 5 Pro, but that hasn't stopped demand for the $900 console to surge to new heights.

Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro console has gone out of stock at multiple retailers in the United States, including Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, as well as Sony's own direct-to-consumer PlayStation Direct store.

It's believed that Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6 is the main reason for the major sales spike. The recent GTA 6 extended look trailer on Netflix clearly promoted Sony's PlayStation 5, confirming that everything was captured on a base PS5 console. Rockstar has confirmed that GTA 6 will still run at 30FPS on PS5, matching up with reports from many months ago that cited CPU limitations as the main reason for the frame rate target.

Digital Foundry thinks that Sony's new Eco Mode isn't necessarily being used in the new PlayStation handheld.

Reports indicate that Sony is working on a new dedicated PlayStation handheld that can play PS4 and PS5 games. Unlike the PS Portal, this new handheld will natively run games right on the machine itself, and the PS5's new Eco Mode is believed to be a kind of compatibility testing ground to ensure console games can run on the lower-powered handheld.

But Digital Foundry has cast doubt on that theory. The tech experts still believe Sony is making a new PlayStation handheld, but they're not so sure Eco Mode is involved.

Rockstar Games quietly released a 14GB file of the Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay reveal, which has revealed that some of the graphical problems people are noticing aren't being caused by streaming compression on Netflix or YouTube, but are actually problems within Grand Theft Auto 6 that Rockstar might not be able to fix before launch.

The 14GB high-bitrate file of the trailer was released by Rockstar Games, and while the downloadable trailer showcases a much cleaner version of the Extended Look, it has also loosely confirmed that some of the graphical problems noticed by viewers, such as smearing, pop-ins, shimmering, and fizzling details, are actually within Grand Theft Auto 6, and not just video compression artifacts.

After analyzing the high-quality footage, the tech experts at Digital Foundry pointed out several graphical issues and found that many are baked into the game's rendered image.

Rockstar Games released its highly anticipated look at Grand Theft Auto 6, showcasing an extremely ambitious, and perhaps the most ambitious game ever released on a console.

In a recent 20-minute gameplay look, Rockstar officials told media and influencers at a behind-the-scenes event that Grand Theft Auto 6 is targeting 30FPS at launch on consoles, which hasn't been well received by some console owners or fans. Some believe the desired 60FPS mode will be restricted to the Pro versions of the consoles, such as the PlayStation 5 Pro. However, that might not be the case, as tech experts at Digital Foundry believe the PS5 Pro's extra GPU horsepower would be better spent improving image quality, ray tracing, and resolution rather than doubling the frame rate.

Why? Well, the problem isn't with the allocation of GPU horsepower; it's the CPU. Digital Foundry says in a recent podcast episode that GTA 6 was likely designed around 30FPS because of the large amount of open-world simulation. Objects, NPCs, physics, and other systems run concurrently, all weighing on the CPU, and the PS5 Pro's CPU offers only about a 7% improvement over the base console. That 7% improvement typically translates to a 7% increase in in-game FPS, which means there simply isn't enough performance to double the framerate.

Apple raised the price of its Apple TV streaming service on Friday, marking the fourth increase in four years. The monthly subscription climbed $2 to $14.99, while the annual plan jumped 20%, from $99 to $119.

Apple's Individual tier of Apple One, the bundle that pairs Apple TV with Apple Music, iCloud+, and Apple Arcade, also rose from $19.95 to $21.95 per month. The new prices took effect immediately for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will receive roughly a month's notice before the higher rates apply to their accounts.

The increase continues a steady climb for Apple TV, which launched in November 2019 as Apple TV+ at just $4.99 a month. Since then, the price has risen from $4.99 to $6.99 in 2021, then to $9.99 in 2023, $12.99 in August 2025, and now $14.99. That means the service has tripled in price in just seven years. Apple also raised the price of Apple Music by $1 last month and increased Apple One's Family and Premier bundle tiers from $26 to $28 and $38 to $40, respectively.

X says its Safety team has identified a bot farm of roughly 200,000 suspected inauthentic Chinese accounts operating on the platform. A subset of 200 accounts was specifically dedicated to posting content about AI data centres. According to X's Global Government Affairs team, those accounts were posting "in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy."

The posts reportedly claimed that AI data centres are driving up household electricity prices and putting excessive strain on local power grids. Some accounts also shared AI-generated cartoons depicting data centre operators profiting while ordinary households absorb the cost. One image showed data centre developers holding bags of cash next to the caption, "Data centres get subsidised while we foot the bill!"

X didn't disclose exactly how it linked the accounts to China, nor did it specify what the remaining roughly 199,800 accounts in the broader bot farm were posting about. The company said it has suspended accounts found to violate its authenticity policy, adding, "We remain committed to maintaining an open and authentic platform where people debate topics of public interest. We take seriously any attempts to undermine the integrity of the global town square."

When we first heard about a foldable iPhone, we thought we might finally get a screen that could repair itself after a scratch. Instead, Apple's first foldable iPhone, widely expected to cost more than $2,000, could also bring its priciest repair bill yet.

According to a Forbes report, Ricky Panesar, founder of repair specialist iCorrect.co.uk, estimates that replacing the device's inner foldable screen could cost around £850, or roughly $1,155. "I think we're going to see the most expensive repair prices from Apple of any handheld device we've seen in the past," Panesar said.

For comparison, an inner-screen replacement on the Galaxy Z Fold 8, which includes Samsung's newer crease-reducing Flex Titanium technology, currently costs £594, while the Z Fold 7 costs £569. Panesar expects Apple's version to land considerably higher than both.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is shaping up to be the longest game Rockstar has ever made. Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson told The New York Times that his own playthrough of the game, completed in February, took 80 hours. That included the main story and some "optional goals with narrative ramifications", though he did not specify exactly how many side objectives he tackled along the way.

For context, GTA 4 and GTA 5 each take around 30 hours to finish their main stories. Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar's previous benchmark for scope and ambition, runs around 50 to 60 hours. An 80-hour playthrough from someone deeply familiar with the game suggests that average players coming in fresh will likely need considerably more time.

GTA 6's map is roughly three times the size of the playable area in Red Dead Redemption 2, and Rockstar has packed it with activities. Gyms return for the first time since San Andreas. Players can go kayaking, skydiving, dirt biking, deep-sea diving, playing pool, or sitting courtside watching basketball. The optional goals Nelson mentioned are said to carry actual narrative weight rather than existing purely as padding, influencing character dynamics and mission outcomes depending on what players choose to pursue.

Xbox's next-generation Project Helix may be an array of devices and not a singular console, and Microsoft is expected to announce more details soon.

Microsoft's new console, codenamed Project Helix, represents a synergy between Windows and Xbox. Now we have more clues on how the future of Xbox hardware will manifest, and from the sound of things, it may include a range of devices. In a recent interview with the BBC at Gamescom 2026, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says that Microsoft is currently developing a "family of devices" for Helix.

"We've been hard at work at a great next generation and a great family of devices for Helix, and we'll share more soon," Sharma said.