NVIDIA is celebrating 20 years of the GeForce 8800 GTX, which hit store shelves on November 8, 2006, with a free tech demo on Steam. Called GeForce 8800 GTX - 20 Years of a Legend, it was created by Unreal Engine artist Dylan Browne, the developer of Through The Ages, with support from NVIDIA. The semi-interactive demo puts players in a 2006-era PC gaming room, where they can unbox the 8800 GTX, inspect it up close, and install it in an era-accurate PC tower, with GeForce easter eggs scattered around. The scene is rendered with path tracing, DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, and RTX Mega Geometry. It is available now on Steam and is coming soon to GeForce NOW for Ultimate members.

Naturally, the 8800 GTX itself can't run any of this, which is quite ironic, to say the least. Steam lists an RTX 4070 as the bare minimum and recommends an RTX 5080, alongside 32 GB of system RAM and 30 GB of storage. That RAM figure alone is over 40 times the 8800 GTX's 768 MB of video memory. The recommended RTX 5080 is far from cheap right now either, with TechSpot's October survey putting its lowest US price at around $2,200. So a demo built around the thrill of unboxing a new GPU in 2006 wants one of the priciest gaming cards of 2026 to look its best.

TDK Corporation (TSE:6762) has successfully demonstrated, for the first time in the world, a direct retinal projection (DRP) display for smart glasses using a meta-optic mirror. The flat mirror uses nanoscale reflectors, measures just 150 nm thick and can be embedded directly into a lens. With a visible-light transmittance of approximately 80 percent, it enables smart glasses with transparency equivalent to that of ordinary eyeglass lenses, giving them a natural appearance suitable for everyday use. TDK will exhibit a prototype at CEATEC 2026, beginning on October 13, 2026, and at electronica, November 10-13, 2026.

TDK has established technologies for an ultra-compact full-color laser module (FCLM), one of the smallest of its kind in the world, and a visible-light full-color laser control device capable of achieving 4K resolution. The company has also been developing the key devices required for DRP in smart glasses. Conventional DRP systems used a curved mirror mounted in front of the user's eye to project images onto the retina, making it difficult to achieve smart glasses with a natural appearance. By arranging unique nanoscale reflectors on a plane and creating a structure that changes the angle of light reflection depending on the position of the mirror, it is possible to reflect laser light incident from various angles at the reflection angle necessary for DRP. Therefore, it is possible to replace conventional curved mirrors.

According to a newly proposed bill called the "Protect Our Games Act," United States Democratic Senator John Kane has introduced an initiative aimed at preserving games and assisting consumers who already own them. We've seen countless instances where you buy a game, and then an online server gets shut down at some point, rendering your games unplayable. To prevent this, the US Senator has distributed a co-sponsorship memorandum to members of the Pennsylvania State Senate, who plan to propose the new "Protect Our Games Act" to the United States Senate with participation from all 50 states. While it is not yet a proposed bill, it is shaping up to be one of the most impactful acts the government could impose. After failing in California, Pennsylvania might be the next state to push it.

Specifically, the proposal states that game developers would be required to inform their customers at least 60 days in advance of any intention to discontinue the game or make changes affecting its functionality, such as shutting down online servers. If such changes are necessary, game developers would need to offer one of three proposed options. The first option is to keep the game playable offline. The second option requires developers to provide a patch that allows continued online use independent of the developer's servers. The third and final option is a refund for the game. For this third option, the refund must be tied to the highest price the game developer offered the game at within the 12 months prior to ceasing operations. Additionally, the refund may not be less than 25% of the original game listing.

The KytyPlus PS5 emulator has reportedly rendered the Unreal Engine 5-powered Silent Hill 2 remake on an integrated GPU. Reddit user Legal_Help_31 shared a test on an AMD Radeon 840M with 512 MB of dedicated VRAM plus shared system memory, paired with a Ryzen AI 5 340 and around 15 GB of shared RAM. Performance is still not where we would want it, of course. The game's content warning screen runs at around 4 FPS, and it looks like the game only starts and sits there for several minutes without crashing. The test includes no gameplay at this time. The developer's own GitHub page calls the work experimental and says it is not a playability claim. FSR upscaling can apparently be used as well.

KytyPlus is a high-level emulation (HLE) fork of the KytyPS5 project. It reportedly runs without Sony's console firmware and uses Vulkan for rendering. The original KytyPS5 reportedly still crashes when launching Silent Hill 2 Remake, even on stronger hardware, so KytyPlus is a few steps ahead there. It is also impressive that this technically ran on an iGPU, but a boot screen at 4 FPS tells us very little about whether this ever becomes playable. The emulation scene has moved quickly in recent weeks, though, with KytyPS5 showing tremendous progress in Demon's Souls Remake and Astro Bot, among other games. KytyPlus developers are apparently now working to improve the performance in Silent Hill 2 Remake.

It was announced in February 2026 that Evil Empire and Motion Twin, the indie studios behind the massively successful Dead Cell franchise, is working with Konami on Castlevania: Belmont's Curse. Ahead of the game's October 15 launch, Konami just announced in a Tokyo Game Show livestream that it would be releasing a demo for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse on October 1.

The demo will be available on all platforms on which the game is planned to launch—that is to say PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, and the demo will allow players buying the game on the same platform they played the demo on to keep their progress if they buy the full game. The demo will run at 60 FPS on PC and full-size consoles, but only 30 FPS on the Switch, and content and features will be restricted in the demo version. The full livestream with the demo details is available below (in Japanese).

A developer has apparently gotten an experimental PS5 emulator running on the Xbox Series X. Devran Cosmo Uenal, who posted about the project on YouTube on September 8, calls it a research project that ports the open-source KytyPS5 emulator to Microsoft's console through Developer Mode. Uenal shows GEX Trilogy, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Quake II in his game library and claims they all work with controller input, with sound working in some of them. He also says AI tools were used, but it's unclear how much of the code they wrote. Compatibility is very limited, and Uenal says a lot of work is left.

According to him, the Xbox environment doesn't support Vulkan, which KytyPS5 uses for rendering, so the graphics side has to be adapted to DirectX. That likely means progress on the PC version won't carry over automatically. We haven't seen performance benchmarks either, but the video shows Quake II running somewhere between 25 FPS and 45 FPS. The game also dips below 20 FPS in some scenes, especially when it first boots up. There is also a marked jump in input latency that can be observed, but no numbers back it up yet.

PS5 emulator KytyPS5 has added another PlayStation 5 exclusive to its compatibility list, with Astro's Playroom now booting into gameplay. YouTuber Unreal Gaming shared footage of the pack-in platformer running on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 4080, the same rig used in KytyPS5's earlier tests. Astro's Playroom ships pre-installed on every PS5 and serves as an interactive intro to the DualSense controller, so getting it running is a solid emulation milestone, even if performance is still lagging. Apparently the game drops below 30 FPS fairly often, though the clip shows no crashes, which puts it slightly ahead of some other recent KytyPS5 tests.

The emulator has previously gotten the PS5 build of GTA 5 running at up to 60 FPS, and separately showed rapid progress with Demon's Souls Remake. Both titles, however, along with Astro Bot, have their own performance and crashing issues. Given that PS5 emulation is still in its early days, performance across these titles will probably keep climbing. Hardware demands remain steep either way. A Ryzen 7 9800X3D has become something of a baseline for these PS5 emulation runs, given how CPU-bound the process is. Still, the pace with which these updates are coming out suggests development isn't slowing down.

Some of the earliest known gameplay footage of Fortnite has resurfaced online, nearly 14 years after it was first shown behind closed doors at Comic-Con 2012. Reddit user u/kleuscher posted the clip to YouTube, saying they'd kept it saved on a USB drive since 2012, when they originally got the footage from a Russian forum. Apparently, uploading it back then earned them a copyright strike from Epic Games. The nearly five-minute clip is rough around the edges quality-wise, but it's a neat look at what Fortnite looked like before Battle Royale took over.

The footage shows early versions of Save the World, Epic's cooperative survival mode, with resource gathering and wall-building already present in some form. Save the World eventually launched alongside the rest of Fortnite in July 2017, years after this demo, and didn't go free-to-play until 2020. It's a nice little reminder of how different Fortnite's original pitch was, and how the game evolved. Epic once described Save the World as a mix of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead, long before Battle Royale reshaped the game into the phenomenon it is today. It'd be pretty cool if this pushed other people to dig up and share more lost footage like this.

Each week, new games and apps integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Last week, Valve kicked-off their latest Steam Next Fest, enabling developers to release time-limited demos of their upcoming titles. Many include support for DLSS and other RTX technologies, including two we're highlighting today, which are still playable: the Mortal Shell II Open Beta, and The Sinking City 2 demo.

Additionally, Empulse is out now with DLSS, and Subnautica 2 has upgraded to native DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution.

Cryorig previously showed off its Lull silent PC case at Computex 2025, and at Computex 2026, the brand has debuted a more refined version of the Lull PC, with neater hose routing and apparent expanded active cooling support. The new Lull chassis still uses the same left-side-panel cooling solution, but this time, the radiator has been expanded to 450 × 475 × 19 mm, which actually works out to less volume than the previous iteration, however, it increases the surface area, which likely results in increased cooling capacity. The case itself weighs in at a whopping 15.8 kg. As with the previous version, there is an AIO pump block on the CPU that pumps water through the loop, so the system is unlikely to be entirely silent. However, the pump runs at a constant 2700 RPM, which is slower than many commercially available AIO coolers.

One of the biggest changes to the case design is that the tubing for the water cooling block connects to the pump via ports mounted to the inside of the case behind the motherboard tray. Previously, the Lull case had space for the tubing to exit the case and enter the radiator externally, so this change makes the whole build cleaner. The new case also has room for three 120 mm fans behind a ventilated case front panel, where the old model had a tempered glass panel curving around the front and right side of the case. This is a notable change, because it means users can install low-RPM fans in the front of the case to provide direct front-to-back airflow through the case for cooling VRMs and non-passively cooled components, like the PSU. The case itself supports up to ATX motherboards, and there appears to be ample room behind the motherboard tray for things like cable management, SSD installation, and even two 3.5-inch HDD trays in the bottom of the case.

Auroch Digital and Big Fan Games have released the debut playable demo for the incredible upcoming retro shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2, while unveiling a dazzling, bloodsoaked new trailer as part of the Warhammer Skulls Showcase 2026. The demo and trailer hit today ahead of the game's full release on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S later this year.

Picking up where you left off at the end of the original and best-selling Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, Boltgun 2 takes you to all-new locations in a branching, single-player campaign with more guns, more enemies, more exploration and more of, well, everything.

With a little over a month left before the launch of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft has given us a look at what to expect from the latest entry into the long-running game franchise, specifically the overhauled combat, parkour, and stealth. The game studio showed off a long list of features and updates to the game, but the gist of it is that Ubisoft has invested time making the combat more reactive and challenging, the parkour more responsive and fluid, and the stealth gameplay more engaging and intuitive.

Possibly the most important and exciting new mechanic coming to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced is a combat rework that makes enemy NPCs more interesting to face off against. According to Ubisoft, the combat in Black Flag Resynced will be "more demanding," thanks to what it calls Adaptive Enemies, which will spot attack patterns and adapt to them over the course of a combat encounter. "For example, wait around too much for a Parry, and enemies will react by performing Unstoppable Attacks that cannot be parried. Abuse a Kick too much, and enemies will quickly dodge them. The trick is to alternate between offense and defense. Varying your combos helps. Rotate between Kicks, Sweeps, Rope Darts, Pistols and Heavy Strikes at the end of your attack combos to confuse enemies." Enemies will also come with different archetypes, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses, like the soldiers, who prefer to work in pairs and coordinate attacks, or the Brute, Captain, and Demolitionist, which will require players to break their guard before going in for a takedown.

NVIDIA's latest DLSS 5 technology has faced a significant community backlash, with its approval rating dropping considerably. On the published YouTube video, NVIDIA's official DLSS 5 announcement has received an overwhelming 83.7% dislikes, with only 16.3% likes. This is a substantial negative rating, with 16,107 likes and 82,515 dislikes (and counting) on a video with 1,527,915 views at the time of writing. Other videos published by the NVIDIA GeForce YouTube channel have also recorded surprisingly low approval from the community. The Resident Evil Requiem video only scored a 14.9% positive rating, while Starfield had an 18.2% positive ratio of likes to dislikes. Other demos such as Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC saw positive ratings of 18.7% and 14.5%, respectively. The best rating is now exclusive to a tech demo, not even a real game, which is the Zorah Unreal Tech Demo with a 37% positive ratio.

Gamers' reactions are shifting negatively towards the technology, while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang famously noted that gamers are "completely wrong" because these games offer massive programmability and controllability in how DLSS 5 is applied, keeping the artistic intent intact. However, according to game developers from both Capcom and Ubisoft who spoke to Insider Gaming, while the individual studios may have been involved in marketing DLSS 5, the teams who worked on them were just as surprised by the results as the rest of the gaming community. A Ubisoft developer is quoted as saying, "We found out at the same time as the public," while developers at Capcom expressed similar sentiments, stating that it was surprising to see Capcom, which has generally been protective of its IPs when it comes to AI involvement, getting involved in the marketing for DLSS 5. Furthermore, the Capcom developers expressed concern about how DLSS 5 might change Capcom's approach to generative AI and its role in game development.

Pragmata is an upcoming fresh original sci-fi action-adventure IP out of Capcom, and if the studio's claims are to be believed, there is a lot of hype for an interesting new game franchise in a world full of remakes and copycats. According to a recent post on X by the Pragmata Japan account, the game's demo has been downloaded over 2 million times, and over 2 million players have added Pragmata to their wish lists.

According to independent data on SteamDB, Pragmata currently ranks 15th in the Steam Wishlist charts, just ahead of the Valve Steam Deck and behind Total War: Warhammer 40,000. Curiously, the Pragmata Sketchbook Demo's SteamDB page only records a peak concurrent player count of 7,932 players, although Pragmata will be a cross-platform launch, so there's likely decent interest on the PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series consoles. Pragmata is slated to launch on all aforementioned platforms and on PC via Steam on April 17, 2026. Pragmata also already has a Platinum ProtonDB rating, meaning it should play well with Linux and the Steam Deck.

Ahead of Embedded World, Arduino announced the upcoming launch of its newest platform to democratize edge AI, Arduino VENTUNO Q. Named after the Italian word for twenty-one, VENTUNO Q builds on the iconic legacy of the popular Arduino UNO family and embodies the company's coming of age as it prepares to celebrate its foundation's 21st anniversary, later this month.

At the Edge of Intelligence: Where AI Takes Action
VENTUNO Q unites high-performance AI compute with deterministic real-time control, enabling systems that don't just interpret the world—they interact with it.
The board builds upon a dual-brain architecture similar to Arduino UNO Q, yet significantly upgrades capabilities leveraging the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 Series for both traditional and generative AI workloads, supported by NPU acceleration delivering up to 40 dense TOPS, as well as a dedicated STM32H5 microcontroller for low-latency actuation and motor control. In addition, VENTUNO Q comes with 16 GB RAM—able to handle concurrent inference and complex multitasking—and an expandable 64 GB of storage.

Windrose, formerly Crosswind, is an upcoming PvE co-op pirate survival crafting game that recently made waves during the Steam Next Fest, attracting over 22,000 concurrent players during its demo period. The Discord server for the game also ballooned to well over 20,000 members, and the hype for the game's expected release date reveal was so intense that the development team felt the need to temper expectations when it released the Raging Seas trailer for IGN Fan Fest. In the announcement following the trailer release, the developer behind the game explained that the game's potential scope made it impossible to announce a realistic launch date at the time, adding that "the full EA version of the game could be several times bigger in content and scale than the demo. Like x10 islands, x10 points of interest, more ships, enemies, crafting and building, etc."

In short, the developer asked fans to "let us cook more," explaining that the priority needs to be delivering a quality experience and shipping the game "on time and in best condition possible." The message goes on to promise fans that a release date will be revealed as soon as the development team is confident that it can deliver on all of its goals without having to delay the game. Windrose combines crafting mechanics, adventures on the high seas, and Souls-like combat in an ambitious new project. The demo offered players access to three islands, a ship and crew, early quests and boarding, and a limited selection of weapons, enemies, and survival mechanics. Obviously, the game has a pretty vast scope, and it's being developed by an indie team, so it makes sense that the developers would ask players to be patient for the release date and other information.

Distant Shore is proud to announce the launch of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE demo during Steam Next Fest! You can download this free taste of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE world on Steam and prepare for the full release.

Distant Shore: BRETAGNE landed with a bang during its breakout reveal at the first edition of the New Game+ Showcase. We can't wait to share Distant Shore: BRETAGNE for the first time publicly during the Steam Next Fest. It's a major milestone for us, and we're excited to see how the community reacts. Distant Shore: BRETAGNE is a first-person parkour physics based game, where you wield your magnetic gauntlets to move, bend and break metal obstacles. Navigate through a ravaged world to complete the mission given by your employer.

Sidekick Publishing and developer Randwerk are excited to announce their partnership on the highly-wishlisted open-world roguelike WANDERBURG, with a surprise playable demo launching Today as part of Steam Next Fest. WANDERBURG landed with a bang during its breakout reveal at the 2025 PC Gaming Show, with a trailer that has since racked up over 470,000 views. The game has since received over 250,000 wishlists and saw 126,000 participants during the recent closed playtest.

Inspired by Mortal Engines and Howl's Moving Castle, WANDERBURG is a minimalist open-world roguelike in an ecosystem of Castles on Wheels. Consume, grow bigger, upgrade your modules, and survive! Unlock new weapons, build your castle, and discover a procedurally generated map.

We have an important update to share regarding the launch of REPLACED. After a lot of back and forth, we have decided to shift our release date to 14 April 2026. As a small team working on our very first title, we've poured everything we have into this project. While the game is technically finished, reaching this final stretch has shown us that we need just a few more weeks to ensure the experience is exactly what you deserve. We want the version of REPLACED you play on day one to be polished, stable, and true to the vision we've shared with you.

The response to our Steam demo has been the ultimate fuel for us. To be honest, putting it out there was nerve-wracking, but seeing your gameplay, reading your reviews, and hearing your excitement has been overwhelming in the best way possible. We are constantly reading your comments, and that feedback is helping us make the final tweaks that will make the full game shine.

Classiq, the leading quantum computing software company, Comcast and AMD today announced the completion of a groundbreaking trial aimed at improving Internet delivery by leveraging quantum algorithms to supercharge network routing resilience.

"What our customers want is simple: fast, secure and reliable connectivity, but when you operate a network as large and dynamic as ours, delivering on that promise is complex, especially in the face of growing network demand," said Elad Nafshi, Chief Network Officer, Comcast Connectivity and Platforms. "We launched these trials with Classiq last year with the goal of understanding how quantum software and technology could tackle real network challenges. Our results have shown that quantum computing for network optimization isn't theoretical - it's practical, scalable, and grounded in the needs of our customers."

Darkhaven, a new multiplayer online ARPG that makes some pretty bold promises, has officially gone live on Kickstarter to raise its $500,000 funding goal, managing to raise $79,906 halfway through the first day of funding. Darkhaven's developer, Moon Beast Productions, explains that the game will have a fully procedurally generated, destructible sandbox world with "Diablo-style progression, skills, and itemization," and free, open exploration with a high degree of mobility in and out of combat. The Kickstarter will run until March 20, 2026, giving the developer a little over a month to garner funding. In addition to the Kickstarter, Moon Beast Productions has published both a development timeline and a pre-alpha demo on Steam.

The pre-alpha demo is touted as the foundation of the game, and it admittedly lacks polish and serves only as a way for players to test out the gameplay mechanics of Darkhaven. Moon Beast claims that the pre-alpha is an "unfiltered version of what we're building, not a watered-down teaser," suggesting players will be able to explore much more of the game world than a traditional demo would allow. The developer has also published a timeline explaining what it had been working on in the time the game has been in development as part of its Darkhaven timeline, in the process revealing that Darkhaven should launch in Steam Early Access close to Q4 2026. The studio also explains that the Kickstarter funding will go towards developing more character classes and skills, adding to the mob roster, building out the game's lore, NPCs, and quests, and adding more biomes and environmental events.

Dive into an unforgettable adventure with Darwin the octopus! Darwin's Paradox!—a brand new story-driven adventure platformer developed in partnership with ZDT Studio—releases April 2. Pre-orders have started! Embark on a grand adventure worthy of a true animated movie with Darwin, an octopus as charming as he is clever, ripped from the ocean and trapped in a massive and mysterious industrial complex. With his extraordinary intelligence and incredible abilities—swimming, camouflage, and many other fascinating skills—help him overcome the most formidable traps and dangers in this captivating platformer, adventure, and puzzle game.

The time for tactical tentacle action has arrived
Play the Darwin's Paradox! Tactical Octopus Action Demo right now. Can you find all the Easter eggs? In the peaceful vastness of the ocean, Darwin, a young octopus, explores the deep sea… until a strange beam of light pierces the abyss and pulls him toward the surface. Thrust out of his aquatic world, he wakes up disoriented in the middle of a gigantic junkyard, backed by a foreboding factory. But something is wrong. Between the threatening machines, strange holding tanks, and the mysterious and dangerous creatures and characters that inhabit the place, Darwin realizes he is in danger.

Euro-Q-Exa, the first EuroHPC Joint Undertaking quantum computer deployed in Germany, has been unveiled at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching, Munich. The deployment marks a significant step in Europe's effort to build long-term quantum capability as part of its sovereign digital infrastructure, alongside world-leading high-performance computing (HPC).

Installed, hosted, and operated at LRZ, Euro-Q-Exa is designed not merely to provide access to quantum computing, but to enable European researchers to build, operate, and scale quantum capabilities locally. By embedding the system within an established HPC environment, the system supports the development of hands-on expertise, operational know-how, and sustainable research capacity within Europe.

We are excited to share that a demo of Planet of Lana II is live now! Return to Novo and play as Lana and Mui in this curated preview of their upcoming journey. This demo features atmospheric glimpses across five different points in the game, offering a deep dive into the expanded gameplay and breathtaking world-building, with just a whisper of the story yet to unfold.

Embark on an unforgettable cinematic puzzle journey with Lana and her loyal companion Mui. Whether you're a returning hero or a new adventurer, step into a world where a new, ancient mystery emerges from Novo's hidden depths. But as they scour these depths, a new threat will put their unbreakable bond to the ultimate test, guiding Lana to confront her destiny amidst encroaching shadows. Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf is a cinematic puzzle adventure framed by an epic sci-fi saga that stretches across centuries and galaxies. You do not need to have played the first Planet of Lana to enjoy the demo, but the original game is available if you would like to discover where their story began.

Hey everyone! We—at Sad Cat Studios and Thunderful Publishing—are beyond excited to share that the REPLACED demo is now officially out. It's been a long journey to get here, and we're so incredibly grateful for the support you've shown us - it means the world to us. This is the first time we're putting the game into your hands, and we are so excited to hear what you think—although a little nervous, of course! Thanks for sticking with us. Hope you enjoy your first trip into this world.

In the demo, you will play as R.E.A.C.H., an artificial intelligence trapped in a human body. In an alternate 1980s America reshaped by nuclear catastrophe, Phoenix-City has become one of the Corporation's strongholds - a haven for corruption where outlaws thrive, and human life is traded like currency. Expose the Corporation's hidden agenda and the truth behind your own creation in a journey that blends action-packed rebellion with an intimate exploration of what defines us as humans.