NVIDIA has released NVIDIA App 11.0.9.585, a small update that adds DLSS Override profiles for 19 games and Optimal Settings profiles for six. The list mixes older titles like PUBG: Battlegrounds, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Dragon's Dogma 2 with Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, Gears of War: E-Day, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer, all of which were scheduled to launch in September or October. Oddly enough, 007 First Light was already listed in the main 11.0.9 release, and Active Matter showed up back in 11.0.8. NVIDIA doesn't explain the repeats, and it doesn't say which overrides each game supports either.

The changelog otherwise only mentions "various stability/security fixes" without any details. This build follows two bigger ones that added significantly more features. The main 11.0.9 release brought DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction and per-game Resizable BAR controls, while 11.0.9.565 added RTX Spark support, a local MCP server for AI agents, and a faster Performance Mode for DLSS Frame Generation. As a refresher, DLSS Override lets GeForce RTX owners use newer DLSS models, or modes like DLAA, that a game may not offer on its own. It sits under Graphics > Program Settings > Driver Settings. Below is the full list of games.

Steam reportedly just had its best September on record. Alinea Analytics estimates that the platform generated a hefty $1.7 billion last month, up 13% from September 2025, which held the previous record. The third quarter was also Steam's best to date at $5.5 billion, a 12% increase year over year. That puts the 2026 total at $16.5 billion after nine months, compared to $14.5 billion in the same period last year, and well past the $11.1 billion it made in the first half. Valve doesn't publish these figures, so all of this is Alinea's estimate. Bulkhead's early access shooter Wardogs was the top premium game with $86.9 million after launching on September 10, followed by Onimusha: Way of the Sword at $30.4 million and The Blood of Dawnwalker at $26.9 million.

Free-to-play is still a big part of the picture, however. Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Dota 2 brought in almost $168 million combined, nearly 10% of the month's total. Alinea also noted that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade for existing owners, pushed the 11-year-old game to roughly 2.4 million daily active users across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox on its September 30 launch day, over ten times its 2026 average. All of this spending comes at a time when PC hardware is anything but cheap. Valve's own Steam Machine starts at $1,049, and Micron expects memory supply to be much tighter in 2027 and 2028. The analytics suggest people are buying games regardless, and Alinea expects Steam to cross $20 billion in a year for the first time. With the Q4 release slate still to come, that looks to be a safe bet.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about AI-powered teammates in video games of late, with everyone from NVIDIA to Ubisoft and Take-Two expressing interest in the feature. That same Ace AI tech that NVIDIA demonstrated over a year ago has now made its way into PUBG: Battlegrounds as a time-limited game mode called Ally Duo. Announced for the PUBG: Battlegrounds update 42.1, PUBG will be introducing the new Ally Duo game mode, which will pair players with an AI-powered companion in a new arcade mode in the Sanhok jungle map.

In a demo shown off previously by NVIDIA, Ella, the player's AI companion powered by NVIDIA Ace, responds to spoken instructions with natural language, guides players with in-game info and advice, and can be controlled by the player with those same spoken instructions—for instance, helping players look for resources and vehicles, delivering those vehicles, spotting and engaging enemies, and helping set up strategic attacks. Ella and the Ally Duo game mode are currently in beta and will only be available in PUBG: Battlegrounds from June 17 to July 1. The new mode strictly requires an NVIDIA RTX GPU for AI processing, with the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3060 8 GB cards and 16 GB of system memory being the minimum spec, while the RTX 4070 paired with 24 GB of system RAM is recommended. Players must also enable hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling if not enabled already. The NVIDIA Ace AI PUBG demo follows.

Fosi Audio has announced the launch of the new C3 Gaming Sound Card, the first card in the company's esports lineup. Now available on various shopping platforms, the C3 combines StepSense gaming audio, Hi-fi-grade circuitry, and intuitive desktop controls to help competitive players hear more, react faster, and communicate more clearly during gameplay.

StepSense Audio Enhancement for Competitive FPS Gaming Developed specifically for FPS gamers, the C3 uses Fosi Audio's proprietary StepSense positional audio enhancement technology to analyze in-game audio in real time and intelligently enhance critical footstep frequencies without overpowering explosions, gunfire, or environmental effects. Unlike traditional EQ-based gaming sound cards that boost entire frequency ranges indiscriminately, the StepSense technology selectively enhances key positional audio cues while preserving the overall game mix for improved situational awareness and reduced listening fatigue.

PUBG: Blindspot launched at the beginning of February as a new 5v5 top-down shooter from the same studio and publisher as the original PUBG, but now, less than two months after the launch of the game, the developer, ARC Team, has announced that the new free-to-play tactical shooter will be shutting down on March 30, 2026. ARC Team says that, although the developers had tried to explore ways to improve the game based on player feedback, the studio is "no longer able to sustainably provide the level of experience we set out to deliver through Early Access."

PUBG: Blindspot has a fairly acceptable 72% positive rating on Steam, but player counts are rather low, with an all-time peak of just 3,251 concurrent players and a 24-hour peak of just 236 at the time of writing. PUBG: Blindspot is already delisted from Steam, and players will no longer be able to access the game. This is only one of a number of recent game closures, with other notable additions including Highguard and a number of other games that were in development, like those that recently got caught up in the Ubisoft reshuffle. Further, Riot recently laid off a number of staff from its 2XKO fighting game due to sustainability reasons, all of which seem to suggest that game studios are fighting for revenue more than ever and are unable to make it work long-term if their games aren't immediately successful.

Break out the cake and green sprinkles - GeForce NOW is turning six. Since launch, members have streamed over 1 billion hours, and the party's just getting started. Throughout February, members can look forward to new games, fresh ways to play across more devices and even more ways to bring RTX power to every screen in the house. There's plenty to celebrate: the February games list kicks off with 24 new games. Start with the 10 new games in the cloud this week, including the launch of Team Jade's Delta Force and the newest title launching in the PUBG universe, PUBG: BLINDSPOT.

Reporting for Duty
Delta Force, now boots on the ground and fully deployed on GeForce NOW, brings the tactical first-person shooter from Team Jade (TiMi Studio Group) to the cloud. The game features high-stakes extraction with an all-out warfare mode, giving players a playground of open environments, vehicles and gadgets to pull off coordinated assaults. Players join elite units tasked with tackling high-risk missions across sprawling maps, from tight urban incursions to rugged open-terrain operations. Expect strategic objectives, combined-arms combat with land, air and sea vehicles, and tense firefights where teamwork and planning are just as important as quick reflexes.

Welcome to the month of February and this month kicks off with a pretty packed week of new releases. This week's major release brings Command & Conquer to mind, but on an alien planet and turn-based. The week kicks off with a retro style 2D RPG, which is followed by a magical horror co-op game and an island full of cats. Next up we have a re-imagined version of a Square Enix game and we round off the week with some samurai vs. ninja action. There's also a bunch of other games launching this week, so check out those too.

Menace / This week's major release / Thursday 5 February / Early access
Command a strike force of marines, mercenaries, and criminals in a distant system, cut off from the Core Worlds. At the lawless frontier, the Wayback system is controlled by pirate warlords, questionable corporations, and fractured planetary governments who struggle for a new order. Though you initially lead your strike force of marines from aboard the strike cruiser TCRN Impetus, you'll quickly need to unite the disparate locals under your leadership to defeat an unknown threat. Fielding tanks, walkers, and infantry squads with a massive selection of equipment to choose from, you'll train your troops, plan out operations, and engage in deadly tactical battles. Steam link

More than 800 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week, we're highlighting Project Motor Racing, Prologue: Go Wayback!, and Whiskerwood, three new DLSS games in which you can accelerate performance and enhance image quality. Plus, you can get a free Battlefield 6 weapon skin from NVIDIA app with GeForce Rewards, and enter a giveaway for a chance to win a GeForce RTX 5090. And there's a new gameplay trailer for Tides of Annihilation, launching with DLSS 4.

GeForce Rewards - Claim A Battlefield 6 Weapon Skin While Supplies Last
The Season of RTX continues with a Battlefield 6 GeForce RTX 5090 giveaway, and more! Follow our GeForce social channels to learn more, and to get chances to win. To kick-off this week of giving, you can now snag a Battlefield 6 Marksman SVK-8.6 DMR weapon skin from GeForce Rewards, via NVIDIA app. Simply load NVIDIA app, click "Redeem" on the left nav, and follow the steps to get the skin while supplies last. As for the Battlefield 6 GeForce RTX 5090, head to our social channels on Facebook, Instagram and X, look for the prompt, and follow the steps to enter yourself into the giveaway for this custom wrapped Founders Edition GeForce RTX 5090.

PlayerUnknown Productions, a new game studio started by Brendan Greene, the mind behind PUBG, has launched its first game in Steam Early Access. While Greene is best known as one of the grandfathers of the battle royale genre, the new game, Prologue: Go Wayback! flips the script entirely, promising an open-world, single-player, survival roguelike. The biggest differentiating feature of Prologue: Go Wayback! is its AI-generated open world and exploration. While Go Wayback is a single-player game, there is no fixed narrative—your only objectives are to survive the elements and reach the weather tower.

Every time you jump into a run of Go Wayback, a new world measuring 64 km² is generated, featuring dynamic weather, a day-night cycle, and a unique map. The open beta also features a custom game creator, with configurable game modes and settings and a map editor that allows players to sketch out various geographic features for the machine learning model to base its world on. PlayerUnknown Productions's machine learning model is supposedly trained on freely available open-source data. It seems as though the game studio is trying to find a way to integrate AI into gaming to enable new experiences without some of the common pitfalls of generative AI, especially when it comes to copyright.

Arc Raiders launched less than 24 hours ago, and it has already become a smash hit, beating out many of the top free-to-play games currently topping Steam charts, despite its $39.99 price tag on Steam. At the time of writing, around seven hours after Arc Raiders launched, the game had peaked at 264,673 players, putting it in fourth place in SteamDB's real-time concurrent player tracker and in the number-one spot in the trending games category. For comparison, The Finals, a free-to-play shooter from the same developer, Embark Studios, launched almost two years ago, and it similarly hit high player counts as early as day one, topping out at 242,619 concurrent players, according to SteamDB. Given that Arc Raiders launched on a Thursday and reached such heights already, it stands to reason that the weekend may see player counts rise even further.

Arc Raiders still has a way to go to catch up to some of its more popular peers in the shooter genre, though. Battlefield 6, which launched earlier this month, has recorded concurrent players counts as high as 747,440 players, while PUBG: Battlegrounds peaked at over 3 million players in January 2018. Arc Raiders's popularity comes with a rather impressive "Very Positive" (89% positive) rating on Steam, despite the developer's use of divisive generative AI tech in the game's development. As is the case with The Finals, Arc Raiders only offers a Windows installer package and uses Easy Anti-Cheat, but Embark Studios is not hostile towards Linux users, and many users on ProtonDB have reported that the game works on Linux with Valve's Proton compatibility layer, even without any tweaks, earning it a "Gold" rating on the database.

The term 'AI' has been used in games for decades. These non-playable characters (NPCs) traditionally follow strict rules designed to mimic intelligence, adhere to a guided story, and provide a scripted interaction with the player. However, with the rise of intelligent language models, game AI is primed for a truly intelligent overhaul. At CES 2025, NVIDIA is redefining game AI with the introduction of NVIDIA ACE autonomous game characters. First introduced in 2023, NVIDIA ACE is a suite of RTX-accelerated digital human technologies that bring game characters to life with generative AI. NVIDIA is now expanding ACE from conversational NPCs to autonomous game characters that use AI to perceive, plan, and act like human players. Powered by generative AI, ACE will enable living, dynamic game worlds with companions that comprehend and support player goals, and enemies that adapt dynamically to player tactics.

Enabling these autonomous characters are new ACE small language models (SLMs), capable of planning at human-like frequencies required for realistic decision making, and multi-modal SLMs for vision and audio that allow AI characters to hear audio cues and perceive their environment. NVIDIA is partnering with leading game developers to incorporate ACE autonomous game characters into their titles. Interact with human-like AI players and companions in PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, inZOI, and NARAKA: BLADEPOINT MOBILE PC VERSION. Fight against ever-learning AI-powered bosses that adapt to your playstyle in MIR5. And experience new gameplay mechanics made possible with AI-powered NPCs in AI People, Dead Meat, and ZooPunk.

Steam has announced the full list of Best of Steam games for this year across several categories. The list does not include a lot of big surprises but it is nice to see that some indie games also made it to the list. Categories include Top Sellers, New Releases, Most Played, Early Access, Steam Deck, Controller, and VR.

The Top Seller list include Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios, which is also the Game of the Year winner, Hogwarts Legacy, which was a big game this year, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Lost Ark, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Apex Legends, PUBG Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, and Sons of the Forest. Some of the Top New Releases category, which is measured by gross revenue, include Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Cities: Skylines II, Resident Evil 4, Payday 3, Remnant II, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, FC 24, as well as a few titles that are also top sellers like Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy. and Sons of the Forest.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, in partnership with KRAFTON, Inc., a collective of independent game development studios and the publisher of popular PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, announced a highly anticipated collection of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS-themed gaming gear.

"Razer is thrilled to partner with KRAFTON on this exciting collection," said Addie Tan, Associate Director of Business Development at Razer. "When you combine our expertise in gaming peripherals with their innovative approach to immersive gaming, you get a cool new collection that resonates with gamers worldwide and captivates gamers and enthusiasts alike."

Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" is shaping up to be another leadership desktop processor lineup, with an engineering sample clocking significant increases in gaming minimum framerates over the preceding 12th Gen Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake." Extreme Player, a tech-blogger on Chinese video streaming site Bilibili, posted a comprehensive gaming performance review of an i9-13900K engineering sample covering eight games across three resolutions, comparing it with a retail i9-12900KF. The games include CS:GO, Final Fantasy IX: Endwalker, PUBG, Forza Horizon 5, Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, and the synthetic benchmark 3DMark. Both processors were tested with a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, 32 GB of DDR5-6400 memory, and a 1.5 kW power supply.

The i9-13900K ES is shown posting performance leads ranging wildly between 1% to 2% in the graphics tests of 3DMark, but an incredible 36% to 38% gain in the CPU-intensive tests of the suite. This is explained not just by increased per-core performance of both the P-cores and E-cores, but also the addition of 8 more E-cores. Although the same "Gracemont" E-cores are used in "Raptor Lake," the L2 cache size per E-core cluster has been doubled in size. Horizon Zero Dawn sees -0.7% to 10.98% increase in frame rates. There are some anomalous 70% frame-rate increases in RDR2, discounting which, we still see a 2-9% increase. FC6 posts modest 2.4% increases. Forza Horizon 5, PUBG, Monster Hunter Rise, and FF IX, each report significant increases in minimum framerates, well above 20%.

The popular battle royale PlayersUnknown's BattleGround, called PUBG shortly, has managed to sell over 70 million copies across all platforms it is supported on, like PC and consoles. The huge achievement comes after two and a half years after the game was released, marking a huge achievement for battle royale type of games. The PUBG Corporation, makers of the game, decided to celebrate the new milestone with a release of a remastered Sanhok map. The new Sanhok map is redesigned from the ground up and the developer describes it as "leaner, meaner, and more deadly than ever before!". The new map will go live with the season 8 update, which is going live on July 22nd on Steam, and July 30th on consoles and Google Stadia.

Google Stadia has unveiled several new games and changes coming to the platform in a recent Stadia Connect Event. Google Stadia will be adding 11 new games to the platform, along with updates for Stadia Pro subscribers. The Pioneer Edition of PUBG will be free for Stadia Pro subscribers and $39.99 USD for other users. Stadia also announced that EA would be joining the platform with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order coming this fall, along with Madden NFL & FIFA coming this winter. Stadia will also be launching some various other new games such as Crayta, Get Packed, Wave Break, Embr, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, The Turing Test, and SteamWorld Heist in the coming weeks.

AMD Thursday released its latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.11.2 beta is the second release for the month of November 2019, and comes with optimization for "Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order." The driver also addresses a bug with certain map areas or cities in "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG) intermittently experiencing stuttering or performance loss. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.11.2

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 has a significantly watered down multimedia feature-set compared to the other GeForce GTX 16-series GPUs. The card was launched this Tuesday (23 April) without any meaningful technical documentation for reviewers, which caused many, including us, to assume that NVIDIA carried over the "Turing" NVENC encoder, giving you a feature-rich HTPC or streaming card at $150. Apparently that is not the case. According to full specifications put out by NVIDIA on its website product-page that went up hours after product launch, the GTX 1650 (and the TU117 silicon) features a multimedia engine that's been carried over from the older "Volta" architecture.

Turing's NVENC is known to have around 15 percent performance uplift over Volta's, which means the GTX 1650 will have worse game livestreaming performance than expected. The GTX 1650 has sufficient muscle for playing e-Sports titles such as PUBG at 1080p, and with an up-to-date accelerated encoder, would have pulled droves of more amateur streamers to the mainstream on Twitch and YouTube Gaming. Alas, the $220 GTX 1660 would be your ticket to that.

Nepal yesterday moved to ban the online game PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds, citing negative impact of the game on children and their development. Citing violent content and its effect as the primordial reason for the ban, Sandip Adhikari, deputy director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the nation's telecoms regulator, told Reuters that ""We have ordered the ban on PUBG because it is addictive to children and teenagers."

As part of the ban, all internet service providers, mobile operators and network service providers were instructed to block streaming of the game. Gamers might find ways to circumvent this limitation in order to still be able to play the game; or they'll simply migrate to one of the other Battle Royale games on offer, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends, instead. It's interesting to wonder whether the government of Nepal will keep on chasing the next online game fad one by one or if actual studies on the negative impact of these games are fielded by the Nepalese government.

Razer, the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers, today announces its plan for a long-term lease of a new location for its Southeast Asia headquarters based in the technology and media hub of Singapore. The Company anticipates moving into the new facility in 2020. Razer has been on a strong growth trajectory and delivered a stellar year-on-year growth of 39% in revenues and 46% in gross profit in the first half of 2018. Razer's plans for its new headquarters highlight the Company's growth plans in the esports and gaming industries as the total addressable market (TAM) for gamers is expected to grow from 2.35 billion in 2018 to 2.76 billion in 2021, according to Newzoo Global Games Market Report.

The strategic location of the new Razer headquarters in Singapore also rides on the growing traction of the Services business across Southeast Asia. Razer has proven out to be the preferred monetization platform for gaming and content companies seeking to expand their global presence especially in the fast-growing Southeast Asia market, as evidenced by the recent Razer Gold partnerships with PUBG MOBILE, Nexon America and Webzen. Along with Razer Silver loyalty rewards system, Razer Gold empowers gamers to get the most out of their games and gaming lifestyle.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc. today announced it is the No.1 PC gaming headset brand in retail for two years running in 2017 and 2018. The achievement is based on total retail revenue in the United States according to the NPD Group - Retail Tracking Service. HyperX became the e-tail sales leader when it entered the gaming headset business with HyperX Cloud. Starting in 2017, HyperX exceeded revenue sales of all other headset brands sold through retail outlets. In 2018, HyperX continued to grow market share bolstered by the growth of Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty and Battle Royale multiplayer games.

Best known for its gaming headsets, HyperX provides a variety of PC, console, and wireless headsets including the Cloud II, Cloud Alpha, Cloud Flight and Cloud Revolver. The recently launched Bluetooth-enabled Cloud MIX gaming headset allows gamers to unplug from their gaming device and take their wireless headset anywhere for on-the-go listening. The Cloud MIX design is subtle, street-ready and popular with people who want to use one headset for both gaming and listening to music.

NZXT and PUBG Corporation today announced that two icons of PC gaming, the NZXT Puck and the Pan from PUBG, are together at last. The perfect addition to any gaming battlestation, the NZXT Pan Puck will bash your cable management woes while securely storing any audio headset. With the NZXT Pan Puck your headset is always ready for when you drop into the heat of battle.

"In a heated game of PUBG, I always know that my pan has my back. Whether I am deep in the jungles of Sanhok or the military base in Erangel, the pan has saved me more times than I can count," says Johnny Hou, NZXT's founder, and CEO. "Working again with PUBG Corp. to bring such a trusty and powerful tool to your battle station is very exciting for us. Now with the NZXT Pan Puck you can count on the same level of support when it comes to cable management."

SteelSeries, the global leader in gaming peripherals, in collaboration with PLAYERUNKNOWN's Battlegrounds, is proud to announce a limited edition line of PUBG-branded peripherals. The new headset, keyboard, mouse and mousepad are designed with exclusive images inspired by the popular battle royale game.

"The opportunity to work with the PUBG team, the players and fans has been a phenomenal experience," said Ehtisham Rabbani, SteelSeries CEO. "We are thrilled to bring the brilliant design of the PUBG world to our premier products. Together we are arming PUBG gamers to win the battle."

Without making too much noise about it, Intel sneaked in a revision of its H310 Express entry-level chipset with support for Windows 7. Microsoft, if you'll recall, restricted support for newer processors (Intel "Kaby Lake" and newer, and AMD "Zen" and newer) on the 9-year old operating system, late-2016. There are ways around this restriction. The revised H310 chipset is pin-compatible with its predecessor, and hence major motherboard manufacturers are putting out revisions of their H310 motherboards with the newer chipset, being referred to as either "H310C" or "H310 R2.0."

To bolster this change, Intel is also releasing Windows 7 drivers for the chipset (INF Update Utility); integrated USB 3.0 controllers, the SATA AHCI controller, and even Management Engine Interface (MEI). What you don't get (yet), however, is Windows 7 versions of Intel UHD 6xx Graphics drivers, so you're restricted to using discrete graphics cards. Windows 7 refuses to die down, not just in enterprises, but also among PUBG gamers from China.

PUBG is still a juggernaut of a game and Battle Royale experience, no matter how much Fortnite has been making increasingly larger waves on PUBG's pond of success. To prove that is the fact that released reports for PUBG sales during the month of June point towards a grand total of 4.7 million copies sold during that month alone. That's the second-highest amount of copies in a single month the game has ever sold - only surpassed by October 2017 - and brings the games' total sales up to some 53 million copies. The reduced, sale-level price point of $19.99 (down from the usual $29.99) helped drive sales maybe even more than the games' popularity.