Latest from TweakTown

Gamers spent $1.7 billion on Steam games and content last month, making it the best September on record, per the latest estimates from Alinea Analytics.

Steam just made record earnings for a September month. New estimates from analyst firm Alinea Analytics show that Steam may have delivered a new all-time high of $1.7 billion in Sept. '26. This represents a mighty 13% increase from last year, and the performance was driven by a healthy mix of paid software and free-to-play content spending.

Around 500 games had the top-grossing spots on the platform, of which new IP released in 2026 made up over 20% of earnings. This is a substantial amount that's no-doubt in part driven by the bevy of breakout Steam hits like Windrose, Meccha Chameleon, Blood of Dawnwalker, Pragmata, How to Fish, and Slay the Spider 2, all of which sold over 1 million copies in a matter of days.

Sony has quietly released a new internal hardware revision for the PlayStation 5 Slim. Console technician @Modyficator89 on X posted a teardown of the Marvel's Wolverine Limited Edition Bundle, and the findings are interesting, to say the least. The update introduces a new "EDM-051" motherboard layout, redesigned to be simpler and easier to repair.

However, the most technical changes we see here focus directly on component and cooling efficiency. The new PS5 Slim appears to borrow a page from the PS5 Pro's book, as Sony has updated the liquid-metal cooling setup around the main APU die.

In short, the protective barrier exposes less surface area to the liquid metal, so it is better contained, reduces the chance of leaks, and keeps cooling closer to the processor. The new heatsink also uses a different construction and material than older versions.

Micro Center appears to be tightening its sales process for the GeForce RTX 5090, with some buyers reportedly required to present government-issued identification and sign a declaration confirming that the graphics card will not be exported from the United States.

The requirement surfaced publicly when a customer at Micro Center's Tustin, California, store said they were required to complete an "Advanced Computing Product Purchaser Declaration" when purchasing a PowerSpec AI90 workstation equipped with an RTX 5090. According to the buyer, the requirement had been introduced only a few days earlier.

The form reportedly collects the purchaser's legal name, address, identification details, contact information, intended end user, installation location, and intended use.

AMD first teased 3D V-Cache in 2021 on a 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X prototype, yet the only Zen 3 X3D chips it went on to sell topped out at eight cores. Now a Chiphell user has apparently got hold of one of the 12-core parts that never made it to shelves, and it isn't the version we already knew about.

The chip is an engineering sample of the Ryzen 9 5900X3D, marked with the code 100-000000652. Screenshots show 12 cores, 24 threads, a 105W TDP, and 128MB of L3 cache. That total comes from 96MB on one CCD and the stock 32MB on the other, so it looks like AMD stacked the extra 64MB of cache on just a single chiplet.

The 5900X3D prototype that AMD showed Gamers Nexus back in 2023 had a stack on both CCDs, which added up to 192MB. The difference is notable, but the clock speeds are the more interesting part.

It goes without saying that the current state of PC gaming hardware is less than ideal. Due to the ongoing memory shortage, GPU, SSD, and RAM pricing is all over the place. A quick search on PCPartPicker shows that the average price of an RTX 5070 is around $850, with many models near the $1,000 mark, despite an MSRP of $550.

So, it is a surprise to see the mid-range RTX 5070 currently hold the top spot in Steam's September Hardware Survey, with a market share of 5.86% of surveyed systems, up from 3.56% in August.

Usually, we'd see NVIDIA's RTX 60-class cards at the top of these hardware survey charts. In fact, for a long time, the RTX 3060 had cemented its position as the most popular choice among gamers. The RTX 5070's position is different from this usual cadence.

Famous overclocker Vince Lucido, known for his custom-made KINGPIN edition EVGA graphics cards, is coming back to overclocking after taking a three-year hiatus from the industry, starting when EVGA cut ties with NVIDIA and stopped making graphics cards. In a recent video, Lucido announced his official introduction back into the overclocking space with a new YouTube overclocking channel called Overclocking Kingpin.

Lucidio explained that he is only now coming back to the overclocking scene after being released from contractual obligations (likely from EVGA). Lucidio also revealed that ASUS was the one to bring him back to the overclocking scene, noting that without their constant persistence, he likely would have never gotten back into overclocking.

KINGPIN is one of the most renowned overclockers in the PC industry, known for his record-breaking overclocks, especially in the early 2000s with liquid nitrogen cooling. EVGA began employing Lucido around this time, which eventually led to EVGA making flagship GeForce graphics cards based on his handle. The last KINGPIN graphics card that was officially produced was the RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma laughed at the suggestion that she should apologize to Sony after Microsoft picked up publishing duties for Hideo Kojima's upcoming action-espionage game, Physint.

The exchange appears in a New York Times interview with Sharma, and was quoted by Pure Xbox who reproduced the passage describing Sharma's reaction. According to the report, she laughed, shrugged, and said she was happy Kojima had chosen to work with Xbox. The publishing switch follows Sony's decision to step away from Kojima's upcoming project called Physint. Kojima previously said his studio received an unexpected cancellation notice in June, prompting a search for a new partner before Xbox stepped in.

In the weeks that followed Microsoft formally announced the partnership with Kojima on September 9, which marks the second Xbox project Kojima is producing under the Xbox label, with the second being OD. However, the deal between Xbox and Kojima isn't just on games, as it also includes separate collaboration on film and television projects. Those projects have yet to be detailed or announced. As for Sharma, despite the obvious competitive nature between Xbox and PlayStation, Sharma said Xbox's relationship with Sony would continue as, "Competition and collaboration can coexist," she said.

Sony's surprise release of new PS5 upscaling technology could give Rockstar another way to improve GTA 6's image quality, although support remains unconfirmed ahead of its November 19 launch.

Sony recently dropped Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or QSSR, which introduces AI upscaling to the standard PS5. Sony says the technology emerged from its Project Amethyst collaboration with AMD, using a streamlined neural network and an implementation tuned specifically for the base PS5. In its announcement, Sony confirmed that Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are the first games to receive support.

The tech experts over at Digital Foundry have published the above, detailing their hands-on experience with QSSR, and how upcoming titles such as Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6 could benefit from the technology. Notably, the Extended Look was captured on a standard PS5, and according to DF's Oliver Mackenzie, that footage showcases a resolution of approximately 1440p with temporal anti-aliasing, followed by a conventional upscale to 4K, rather than an existing temporal upscaler such as FSR.

Raspberry Pi has raised the price of its 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 by $12.50, taking the Pi 4 to $67.50 and the Pi 5 to $77.50. That's roughly 18% and 16% more, and the reason won't surprise anyone: memory keeps getting more expensive.

These two boards had been spared before. When Raspberry Pi raised prices in April, the 16GB Pi 5 climbed to $305, while it held the line on the 1GB and 2GB models. CEO Eben Upton now says that approach is no longer sustainable. For perspective, the Pi 5 8GB launched at $80, so the 2GB version now costs just $2.50 less than the top model did on day one. The 1GB Pi 4 and Pi 5 are unchanged, along with the 2GB Compute Module 4 and Compute Module 5, at least for now.

Raspberry Pi advises buying what you need and skipping headroom you won't use. It also points to older boards like the Raspberry Pi 3B, 3A+ and 3B+ for projects that don't need newer hardware. Buyers are also told to stick with Approved Resellers, since some unauthorized sellers have been charging inflated prices and, in some cases, shipping the wrong product.

Google has found a surprisingly well-qualified celebrity for its latest hardware push. In a post on the official Google blog, the company announced that actor Henry Cavill is partnering with Google to build a video game for Googlebooks, its new line of Gemini-powered laptops.

Menaka Shroff, Google's VP of Marketing for the Global Android Ecosystem, wrote that Google wanted "a partner who understands the power of great technology to unlock creativity and bring ideas to life," and chose Cavill, described in the post as an "actor, producer, and tech enthusiast."

Unlike most tech collaborations with celebrity faces, this one actually makes sense. Cavill's been a well-documented gamer for years, talking openly about missing the call offering him the Superman role in Man of Steel because he was mid-raid in World of Warcraft.

The same modder that brought DLSS functionality to RX 7000 series GPUs has updated their mod to support NVIDIA's upscaler with newer RX 9000 series GPUs. dr4 or "DLSS 4 Radeon," uses ZLUDA and hand-written code and FP8 instructions to convert DLSS code to run on RDNA 4 hardware. That said, the modder claims this mod is a proof of concept and is not practical for daily use (the main issue being the mod relies on unreleased patches for ZLUDA and Proton).

The mod currently supports DLSS 4 and DLSS 4.5 with the RX 9070 XT, RX 9070, RX 9070 GRE, RX 9060 XT, RX 9060, and Radeon AI Pro R9700. DLSS 4/4.5 enablement differs from the modder's RDNA 3 work, which used ZLUDA to convert DLSS code into a format AMD GPUs could understand. That said, heavier DLSS kernels are hand-written specifically for RDNA 3 or RDNA 4 rather than using ZLUDA.

The main issue with the upscaler that prevents it from being a very effective solution on AMD GPUs is its performance. The modder recorded frame rates well below those of FSR 4 on an RX 7700 XT, DLSS 4.5, DLSS 4, and even one of the much lighter DLSS 3 models that was tested.

One of the suspects responsible for the recent hack on Rockstar Games' servers has been arrested by Netherlands police, and evidence also implicates the suspect in potential murder-for-hire charges.

A member of the ShinyHunters hacking collective has been arrested by Amsterdam police and is being held in custody, a press release from the National Police Corps confirms. Investigators also found evidence that allegedly connects the suspect to two orders for contract killings.

"On Tuesday, September 15, the police arrested a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam who is suspected of playing a role within the hacker group ShinyHunters. The man is also suspected of attempted incitement to commit two murders. Various data carriers have been seized and are being investigated further. Further arrests are not ruled out."

Good customer service stories are so rare in PC hardware these days that when one shows up, we can't just skip it. Double-South8863 posted to r/pcmasterrace on September 26, saying that one stick in his G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 64GB DDR5-6000 kit died at the beginning of the month. He purchased the kit open-box on eBay back in May 2025 for $150. After confirming the fault across two different systems, he ran it on a single 32GB stick for a few days before finally sending the kit in for an RMA. Approximately two weeks later, G.Skill shipped him a full replacement.

Surprisingly, the same 64GB kit is currently listed on Amazon for $1,199. G.Skill's own warranty terms would've allowed the company to refund the original $150 purchase price instead, something that satisfies most warranty obligations, and I'll admit, if I were in G.Skill's shoes watching DDR5 prices skyrocket this year, a refund would've been the cheap way out.

Rather, they sent a working kit worth eight times the original price. "I will never buy any RAM other than G.Skill for as long as I live," Double-South wrote, meaning G.Skill got a lifelong customer.

Video game mods have given us everything from DLC-sized expansions to multiplayer support, but this might be something nobody saw coming. When we hear "merging video games," we usually picture Master Chief swapped in for Lara Croft or similar character model mods. Putting one entire game inside another wouldn't even cross our mind, but that's exactly what's happening here.

The latest example comes from mod creator Tobyn Jacobs, who showed Minecraft running inside the Elden Ring. The clips show Steve swinging a sword at Lands Between enemies while Minecraft's hotbar, hunger and armor bars sit on screen. Jacobs says all 1,600 items, working redstone and Creative Mode made the trip too, and he claims it runs on a Mac. There's no download link or release date yet.

It isn't just Minecraft and Elden Ring either. Others have been showing off similar projects over on X, including Escape from Tarkov mechanics in Skyrim, Minecraft movement in GTA V, Call of Duty: World at War Zombies mixed with Mario Kart, and Mario firing bullets at Master Chief. Weapons, movement, enemies and inventories from completely different worlds are being brought together, and almost any combination now looks possible.

Ubisoft has completed the formation of its Creative House 2 unit with an official name--Massive Entertainment.

French games publisher Ubisoft has revealed Massive Entertainment will be the new creative unit handling key Tom Clancy franchises. Games set in the Ghost Recon, The Division, and Splinter Cell universes will now be overseen by Massive as part of the company's restructuring plan; earlier this year, Ubisoft split its business into "creative houses," with each handling fiscal and creative responsibilities for specific IPs.

The Massive Entertainment umbrella also includes the creation of new original IP, as well as Ubisoft's recently-purchased March of Giants series. Four international groups will team up across North America, France, and Sweden to make new games and content. A big distinction is that Ubisoft will still publish and distribute games from Massive, which is to be expected--the two groups aren't separate and Ubisoft still owns Massive.

Monster Hunter Wilds launched with some pretty significant expectations but also with a rough performance record, with high-end PCs and consoles alike struggling to hit smooth frame rates. Things have improved considerably since then, but the question now is how Capcom plans to get a game that taxed premium hardware onto the Nintendo Switch 2.

In an interview with Kotaku, Capcom producer Genki Sunano offered some insight into how the team approached the challenge. And spoiler alert, it was a "painstakingly endless" process. "We didn't want it to feel like a simple port, where the graphics or performance had merely been scaled down to make the game run on Nintendo Switch 2," Sunano said. "Instead, our goal was to bring the Wilds experience to Nintendo Switch 2 without compromising the experience of Monster Hunter Wilds."

Delivering on that goal required rebuilding the game from the ground up in many different ways. Certain assets and shaders were rebuilt from scratch for the Switch 2 version, with the team designing more efficient implementations while preserving the original look as closely as possible. When visual-effect assets were modified, the team ensured the new versions still aligned with existing hitboxes and collision detection, keeping the gameplay feel intact.

AMD's next-gen Ryzen Z3 handheld chips have popped up in a new leak, and it looks like AMD may be swapping CPU cores for more graphics. Leaker Gotou_3rd on X says the Ryzen Z3 shares its IP with Zen 6-based Medusa Point, but in a semi-custom design.

The configuration is a 4+2 CPU layout (four standard cores and two low-power cores) paired with 12 RDNA 4m compute units. The leaker added that the core configuration may still change, so I'd treat that part with caution. The chips are also said to use a 25 x 25 mm FF6 package.

The standard Medusa Point has been linked to a 10-core layout with four Zen 6 cores, four Zen 6c cores, and two low-power cores, alongside 8 compute units. If the Z3 leak pans out, AMD would drop the four dense cores and spend that budget on a bigger GPU. RDNA 4m is described as a derivative of RDNA 3.5 that adds RDNA 4-class matrix hardware, which should give it native FSR 4 support.

NVIDIA has released a new security update for older GeForce graphics cards, bringing driver version 582.78 to GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures.

The driver is intended for systems that no longer receive NVIDIA's regular Game Ready drivers. As a security-only update, it doesn't include game optimizations, new features, or performance improvements.

The supported hardware spans a wide range of older desktop GPUs. Maxwell coverage includes the GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 950, GTX 960, GTX 970, GTX 980, and GTX 980 Ti, while Pascal coverage runs from the GTX 1050 through the GTX 1080 Ti. The list also includes the GT 1010, GT 1030, TITAN Xp, and TITAN V, alongside numerous older notebook GPUs.

Sony's base PlayStation 5 is getting its own AI upscaling tech called Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), which is an offshoot of the PS5 Pro's PSSR.

The PS5 Pro pushes console gaming to the next level while also laying the groundwork for the PS6's new neural AI-assisted tech. Now Sony is bringing these advancements to the beginning of Gen 9 with QSSR, a new AI upscaler that improves raytraced visuals on base PlayStation 5 consoles. Two games will support QSSR with patches released today: Ghost of Yotei and Insomniac's new Wolverine game.

"We are bringing the benefits of AI-guided upscaling to PS5. While PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, QSSR provides some notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5," Sony said in the announcement.

Halo CE has been successfully reverse-engineered and is now playable on practically every device, including phones and even browsers. Now players have tested out the first 64-man battle at the infamous Blood Gulch.

Modders have been doing interesting things with Halo for years, but now the original Bungie-era OG shooter has essentially been rebuilt by talented programmers. This new recompiled version basically unshackles Halo from its confines and allows it to cross over to other devices like mobiles, and now players have successfully tested out Blood Gulch multiplayer with 64 players. Predictably, chaos ensues--the GOAT of CTF maps was created to support 16 players max.

The only other time I remember seeing something like this is when modded original Xbox consoles were in vogue; back then, the modded consoles would support larger multiplayer lobbies, even if the maps didn't support them, complete with extra vehicles and the like.