Long-time TweakTown editor Anthony Garreffa is recovering in hospital after a serious stroke in late February.

On Monday, February 23, 2026, Anthony suffered a stroke and has since been receiving care in the hospital stroke ward. There were additional complications in the days following the event, further complicating the situation.

Thankfully, Anthony has begun making gradual progress in his recovery. Recently, he has been able to speak a little, understand communication, and regain some movement on his right side. However, the recovery process is expected to be long and will require significant rehabilitation.

After years of waiting, Google is finally introducing native support for ARM64 devices with Linux. This support comes several years after Chrome added support for ARM64 devices running macOS and Windows. According to a post at the Chromium blog, Chrome for ARM64 Linux devices is currently due in Q2 of 2026.

Linux users with ARM64 processors have been able to use the open-source Chromium browser for some time, but while its core browser functionality works well enough, users should appreciate being able to access the full stack of Chrome services via a Google account login.

It's a little surprising that official support has taken so long to implement. Linux on ARM servers has long been a stable market, and Chromebooks with the full Google product stack have ARM support, as does Android. So, gluing the two together for Linux end users should not be too much of a technical challenge.

Saying one thing is a million times more something than another thing is often hyperbole, but during a recent GDC 2026 presentation, NVIDIA's John Spitzer said exactly that when it comes to path tracing performance on future GeForce RTX graphics cards. Of course, this comes with a caveat: performance compared to NVIDIA's pre-RTX Pascal-era GeForce GTX graphics cards that lacked dedicated ray-tracing and AI hardware. Yes, it's all thanks to AI.

Real-time path tracing or full ray tracing is so demanding on GPU hardware that it's only possible thanks to a wide range of AI-powered rendering technologies such as DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, RTX Mega Geometry, and more. As these features are available on the current RTX Blackwell-powered GeForce RTX 50 Series, NVIDIA says it has already achieved 10,000X faster path-tracing performance than in the Pascal era.

"If you look at the performance there with just a software RT core to today, where we have fourth-generation RT cores, we have third-generation Tensor cores, we have DLSS 4.5, which is able to infer 23 out of 24 pixels rendered," NVIDIA VP of Developer & Performance Technology, John Spitzer, said. "These are multiplicative, that you can multiply them all together to get a scaling factor that, combined with the algorithm, eventually gave a 10,000 times that we've improved the performance over the last 10 years."

COLORFUL has announced a new line-up of GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, powered by the latest RTX Blackwell architecture. The new iGame GeForce RTX 50 Ultra Series blends a similar hip-hop-inspired design and aesthetic to last year's Ultra lineup, albeit in a darker black colorway that highlights the purple flourishes.

Visually, they look impressive, with a gradient of purples and neons in the holographic finish and RGB graffiti on the side. With a large heatsink and triple fans for cooling, this new lineup covers all models from the GeForce RTX 5060 up to the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. All options ship with an out-of-the-box OC Mode, with the most powerful model including an iGame GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ultra OC SFF variant for compact builds.

In addition, COLORFUL has announced the new iGame GeForce RTX 50 Ultra DUO Series, featuring a similarly stylish design with compact dual-fan cooling. COLORFUL is releasing iGame GeForce RTX 5060 Ultra DUO and iGame GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Ultra DUO models, including RTX 5060 Ti variants with 8GB or 16GB of VRAM.

Silicon Motion has announced the launch of its latest PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe SSD controller, the SM8008. Designed and purpose-built for data center drives and enterprise storage, where NVMe SSDs are becoming the go-to option for the AI era, the SM8008 is all about delivering performance, power efficiency, and stability.

Built on TSMC's 6nm process technology, the SM8008 delivers up to 14 GB/s or 14,000 MB/sec with over 2.3 million random IOPS (4K) while maintaining a power draw of under 5W. NVMe 2.0a and OCP Hyperscale NVMe Boot SSD Specification Version 1.0 compliant, you've also got inline DDR4-3200 or LPDDR4-3200 to enhance power efficiency and affordability for large-scale deployments.

On that note, Silicon Motion says that SSDs with the SM8008 controller can operate continuously across thousands or even "millions" of servers. Although it's difficult to visualize what millions of SSDs in a data center would look like, the point is that with PCIe Gen5 speeds and power consumption of under 5W, this translates to "significant reductions in total data center power consumption."

Playing a modern PC game, we have all grown accustomed to the 'shader compilation' process, which can take seconds or several minutes to complete. This process, designed to minimize stutter that occurs when new shaders are compiled in real time, also increases the time it takes to get into the action. And it's not always a one-and-done thing, as changes to settings and game updates can restart the shader compilation process.

At GDC 2026, Microsoft announced that it's bringing Advanced Shader Delivery for Windows to PC gamers, with NVIDIA confirming that it will be available for GeForce RTX gamers later this year. It's an ambitious update that is rolling out via the latest AgilitySDK 1.619 release, where developers can generate a "state object database (SODB) file" and then use an "offline compiler to compile the state objects into a precompiled shader database (PSDB)."

Although that's the technical summary of what's involved, the good news for gamers is that pre-compiled shaders for their specific GPU model will be downloaded as part of installing the full game, so the process will be automated and seamless. And for developers, there's also a new Stats API that can be used for optimization and seeing how the game runs in relation to the "shader cache hit rate."

Thermal Grizzly's WireView Pro II is designed not only to measure the power consumption of modern graphics cards or GPUs that use the new 12V-2x6 connector, like NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 5090, but also to prevent potential damage. With per-pin current monitoring, it can detect and alert users of any potential load issues.

The WireView Pro II is an enhanced version of the company's original design and features a CNC-machined aluminum housing with active cooling via a 30-mm fan and 90-degree cable routing. It sports a 320x170-pixel TFT-IPS color display for real-time monitoring of critical measurements such as total power, highest-current pin, voltage, and hottest sensor. And with safety being a key feature of the WireView Pro II, there are both audible and visual warnings if limits are exceeded.

Plus, there's automatic data logging via the included USB-C-to-USB-2.0 cable, making it a fantastic tool for overclockers and those with high-end systems looking to keep tabs on GPU power usage. And with the rise of white-colored PC builds and components, Thermal Grizzly has announced it's launching a WireView Pro II White Edition, available to pre-order via the company's official storefront.

Marathon is out, and pulling respectable concurrent numbers on Steam while holding meaningful positions on platform sales charts...but the same can't be said about Destiny 2.

Forbes' Paul Tassi has noticed a trend with Destiny 2's numbers: Bungie's nearly 10-year-old live shooter has lost a lot of its players. How much is a lot? About 90% since the last expansion, Edge of Fate, which was deemed as one of the game's all-time worst updates.

SteamDB's sales charts for the lifetime of the game also revealed some other disappointing news: Destiny 2 is apparently at its lowest point, player-wise, on Steam. The game currently has less than 8,000 users on Steam, and according to the SteamDB, March 2026 represents the lowest point of all time for Destiny 2's player base.

Across government institutions, universities, research centers, and corporate environments, the volume of paper-based records continues to grow. Contracts, research documents, administrative files, and historical records often remain stored in physical archives that are difficult to manage, search, or protect over time. As organizations accelerate their digital transformation strategies, archive digitization has become a critical step toward improving accessibility, efficiency, and long-term information preservation.

Traditional scanning methods once focused mainly on converting paper documents into image files. However, modern archive digitization now requires more advanced workflows that combine high-speed scanning hardware with intelligent software capable of organizing, processing, and managing digital records. Integrated scanning solutions are helping organizations move beyond simple document capture and toward smarter archive management systems.

Large-scale archive projects present several challenges. Physical records may include fragile documents, bound books, or historical materials that cannot be easily flattened for scanning on conventional scanners. At the same time, organizations handling thousands of pages daily require systems that can process documents quickly without sacrificing accuracy or image quality.

Google's new Genie 3 AI won't be replacing actual game devs any time soon--the technology is still quite limited.

Google's DeepMind team attended GDC 2026 to talk about its experimental (and somewhat controversial) new Genie 3 model. The venue is an interesting choice for Google, especially since generative AI is typically frowned upon in the industry as AI has been seen as a major disruptor that's impacted jobs. Yet the discussion does add critical context to Genie 3, and should assuage investors who see Google's gen AI as a big shake-up for the industry (Google's previous technology, Stadia, was also supposed to shake up gaming...and when it didn't, Google pulled the plug rather quickly).

The reality is that Genie 3's worlds lose their coherence only after a few minutes of play, with glitches and issues quickly popping up. As per GameFile's Stephen Totilo, who attended Google DeepMind's GDC 2026 talk, the Genie 3 game experiences are smooth for the first minute, but essentially fall apart after that.

Analyst firm Newzoo makes notes of new trends among PC gamers, including the skew towards cheaper games at $30 and below.

2025 was an interesting year for gaming that saw many breakout hits, including Clair Obscur, Battlefield 6, and indie sensations like Schedule I and Hollow Knight Silksong. When it comes to PC gaming, though, analyst firm Newzoo finds that users on the industry's most open platform will purchase more copies of cheaper ~$30 games--for a number of reasons.

"Sub-$30 titles are capturing a larger share of PC spending," Newzoo says in its latest games industry report.

Wedbush Securities has confidence that Nintendo's latest hit game is popular enough to convince consumers to buy into the Switch 2 ecosystem.

Nintendo's latest holiday quarter didn't entirely impress in regard to Switch 2 unit sales, but that trend appears to have changed thanks to must-have exclusive software. The latest gaming craze is Pokopia, a new Pokemon spin-off multiplayer builder that has sold 2.2 million copies in just 4 days. The game's success alerted Wall Street, and Nintendo has tacked on an extra $14 billion to its market cap since Pokopia's release.

Thanks to the game's breakout results, and the ongoing buzz and engagement across social media, institutions like Wedbush are taking note of Pokopia's performance. The firm believes that the game could end up being a system-seller for the Switch 2--which certainly appears to be the case as reports of Switch 2 console scarcity are spreading across Twitter and Reddit.

Mega Crit's new CRPG (card RPG) Slay the Spire 2 is a mega success with multi-million sales in its first week--and it's still in early access.

Slay the Spire 2 is gaming's latest craze, and the indie has already sold over 3 million copies in 7 days. The roguelite deckbuilder has attracted millions of players despite it only currently being offered on PC via Steam, so those sales don't even include console users--this shows the game is deeply embedded on PC.

The most important thing to remember is that this is just the start of Slay the Spire 2's story. The game is still in early access and will evolve over time with direct player feedback. The game also amassed more than 570,000 concurrent players on Steam, and in the last 24 hours, the game had over 550K players.

The dispute between Nintendo and the US government involves the tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration, specifically Section 301 of the Trade Act, which raised the cost of thousands of products heading to China, such as video game consoles, accessories, and general electronics.

As you can probably imagine, the newly implemented tariffs raised the cost of hardware entering China and the cost of goods, such as Nintendo products, headed for the United States. Notably, Nintendo isn't the first company to file lawsuits against the US government for the tariffs implemented during the Trump administration. Specifically, Nintendo, along with hundreds of other companies, is suing the US in the Court of International Trade.

So, why was the case automatically paused by the trade court? According to reports, the trade court had already been dealing with many identical tariff lawsuits, with the judge ruling that pending tariff cases would wait until the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the legality of tariffs, as that decision would trickle down to the trade court's cases.

Microsoft recently unveiled Project Helix, the company's next-generation Xbox console, and said it would be the most powerful console of the generation.

However, according to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, one of the leading sources on information on all things gaming and tech-related, the difference between Project Helix and the PS6 is "not that meaningful". Digital Foundry provided this information in the latest episode of the Digital Foundry Podcast, where they evaluated the leaked specifications of both consoles.

Despite Digital Foundry's comments, renowned leaker Kepler_L2, a renowned leaker in the GPU space, wrote, the difference between the PS6, and Project Helix, will be bigger than the difference between the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. "For Magnus (Project Helix APU) it's ~25% higher TFlops/Tex rate, ~33% higher Front-end BW, Geom rate, Pixel rate plus 140% more LLC and 20% more memory bandwidth," the leaker wrote."

Developers have been on a quest to get the original DOOM game to run on as many devices as it possibly can, including devices you wouldn't even consider if you were asked to guess, such as an pregnancy test, earbuds, keyboard keycaps, and even human brain cells.

Developers who have gotten the original DOOM to run on as many devices as possible have made it a somewhat community-accepted benchmark for testing device capabilities, and now one developer has managed to get it to work on Elgato's Stream Deck+ XL. The Stream Deck+ XL is the latest addition to the growing line of Elgato Stream Decks, and Brent Schooley has revealed in a series of X posts that with a little bit of tweaking of performance, he was able to get Codex to create code that made DOOM playable.

Codex is an AI system developed by OpenAI to write and understand computer code from natural-language prompts. The system can generate code in multiple languages, including Python, C, and JavaScript. Additionally, it can modify existing programs, fix bugs, and build new software features. Schooley wrote on X that each dial can perform movement/action inputs if the user doesn't have a controller, which Schooley demonstrates is compatible in the above video.

Fans of The Lord of the Rings games have been shouting from the top of the Misty Mountains for many years about remakes, re-releases, or even remasters, especially with iconic titles such as The Lord of the Rings War in The North, or the slew of EA produced titles based on the Peter Jackson movies, and, of course, the iconic Battle for Middle-Earth titles.

However, none have been announced or released, with the last LOTR title being The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and, well, we all know how that one played out. It's safe to say LOTR fans have been in a drought for a new good game based on the beloved world that Tolkien created, but maybe that is just around the corner, as a Reddit user noticed a new listing in the SteamDB database. The user wrote they "accidentally spotted" the listing "Slinky", which is in the "EULAS" section under "name" - The Lord of the Rings: War in the North.

It's possible the SteamDB listing "Slinky" is a codeword for the re-release of this title on Steam, as it was removed from the platform in 2018 along with every other relevant digital storefront, such as Xbox Marketplace and the PlayStation Store. The only way to play it is via a physical disc or an illegal download. It was removed from digital marketplaces over licensing issues with the Tolkien Estate.

A new report has revealed that Xbox is preparing to launch its Gaming Copilot AI on "current-generation consoles," citing a statement by Sonali Yadav, Xbox's product manager for gaming AI, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2026.

Microsoft's Gaming Copilot AI assistant has been available in a beta version on PC and the ROG Ally since it was released last year. It is officially on its way to Xbox consoles, according to Yadav, who announced the news on a panel at GDC 2026. Presumably, Yadav is talking about the Xbox Series X|S, as those are the "current generation" of Xbox consoles.

For those who don't know exactly what Microsoft's Gaming Copilot AI is, it's essentially an AI "sidekick" that provides real-time help, tips, and recommendations while the player is in-game. If you ask Microsoft, it describes Gaming Copilot AI as a personalized gaming companion that assists players in real time with gameplay, game discovery, and account management. An example of a player prompting the AI sidekick would be, "How do I beat this boss?"

Nintendo is expected to hit it big with the new Mario movie, with estimates putting the film at a $160 million opening in the US--the biggest of 2026.

The new Super Mario Galaxy movie could make up to $160 million in its first five days of domestic ticket sales, Deadline reports.

The film is set to replicate--and potentially exceed--the first Super Mario movie's success, which amounted to $204 million in its first five days. The original movie also generated $1 billion in cumulative ticket sales in just 26 days' time, with earnings roughly split between North America and the rest of the world.

Nintendo's new Pokemon spin-off game is a surprise mega-hit, selling over 2 million copies in less than a week. Investors have taken notice, and Nintendo's shares have surged enough to add billions of dollars to the company's market cap.

Nintendo's latest Pokemon game isn't a traditional release, but that didn't stop it from selling millions of copies. Pokopia is a big success for Nintendo, moving 2.2 million copies in just 4 days and sparking tons of new buzz around the Switch 2.

The game's unexpected sales results, coupled with the ongoing acclaim among fans, have caused Nintendo's share prices to surge, with Bloomberg noting that Nintendo has added $14 billion to the game-maker's market capitalization.

Despite launching in 2013, GTA 5 remains one of the most played games on PC, particularly its online component. For competitive players who take GTA Online seriously, high framerates aren't just nice to have. They're essential for responsive gunplay, smooth driving, and maintaining advantage in PvP encounters. Many serious players maintain multiple GTA accounts to test different optimization configurations and hardware setups without disrupting their main progression. The good news? You don't need a flagship GPU to hit 144 FPS. With proper optimization, mid-range hardware can deliver the performance serious players demand.

GTA 5 scales remarkably well across hardware generations. The game was designed during the Xbox 360 era, but has received continuous updates, optimizing it for modern systems. This means a balanced approach to settings yields better results than simply cranking everything to ultra.

The engine is more CPU-dependent than most modern titles, particularly in GTA Online, where player count, traffic density, and network synchronization tax your processor heavily. A Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel i5-12400 paired with an RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT represents the sweet spot for 1080p 144 FPS gaming without breaking the bank.