Wine 11.6 Begins Reviving Its Android Driver
Wine 11.6 is out as the newest bi-weekly development release for this open-source software enabling Windows games and applications on Linux, macOS, and other platforms… ⌘ Read more

Nvidia Rolls Out Its Fix For PC Gaming’s ‘Compiling Shaders’ Wait Times
Nvidia has begun rolling out a beta feature that automatically compiles game shaders while a PC is idle. It won’t eliminate shader compilation the first time a game runs, but Ars Technica reports it could help reduce those repeated wait times. From the report: Nvidia’s new Auto Shader Compilation system promises to “reduc[e] the frequ … ⌘ Read more

Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% In March
Valve’s March 2026 Steam Survey shows Linux gaming usage jumping to a record 5.33% share – more than double macOS’s 2.35%. Phoronix reports: Steam on Linux was never above 5% and easily an all-time high for the Linux gaming marketshare, especially in absolute numbers. It was a massive 3.1% spike in March while macOS also jumped surprisingly by 1.19% to 2.35%. The Steam Survey … ⌘ Read more

Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed In March - More Than Double The macOS Gaming Marketshare
If Valve’s latest Steam Survey monthly figures are accurate, Steam on Linux enjoyed a very wild month of March. Steam on Linux is now above the 5% threshold and more than twice the size of the Steam on macOS marketshare… ⌘ Read more

UFC-Que Choisir Takes Ubisoft To French Court Over the Crew Shutdown
Longtime Slashdot reader Elektroschock writes: When Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew’s servers without warning, players were left with a worthless game they’d already paid for. Now, consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir is fighting back, demanding gamers’ right to play regardless of publisher whims. Supported by the “Stop Killing Games” mov … ⌘ Read more

RadeonSI Driver Lands Fixes For EDuke32 For Those Wanting To Enjoy Duke Nukem 3D In 2026
It’s fairly rare for the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver to hit OpenGL rendering game bugs these days as besides more games going opting for Vulkan API use, RadeonSI is rather robust and very mature at this stage. Recently though a Linux gamer that upgraded to a Radeon RX 9070 XT RDNA4 graphics card noticed that the open-source EDuke32 Duke Nukem 3D build and its derivatives were failing to render properly with the RadeonSI driver… ⌘ Read more

Sony is Raising PlayStation 5 Prices Again, Between $100 and $150
Memory and storage shortages and price hikes have “steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech,” reports Ars Technica.

“Today’s bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike.”

The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Showing Frequent Performance Advantage Over GNOME 50 With NVIDIA R595 Driver
Earlier this week I provided benchmarks looking at KDE Plasma 6.6’s performance advantage over GNOME 50 for Linux gaming with AMD Radeon graphics. That raised the question if the same was true when using NVIDIA graphics with their official Linux graphics driver stack. Here are such benchmarks looking at the KDE Plasma 6.6 and GNOME 50 performance on Ubuntu 26.04 beta while using the new NVIDIA 595.58.03 Linux driver. ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Delivers An Impressive Edge For Radeon Graphics Over GNOME 50 On Ubuntu 26.04
In testing thus far on Ubuntu 26.04, the KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop with the Wayland session is working pretty darn well and delivering a performance edge across many games/graphics workloads compared to the default GNOME 50 desktop. At least as far as AMD Radeon graphics are concerned, Plasma 6.6 is in quite impressive shape for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. ⌘ Read more

Unvanquished 0.56 Released With More Renderer Improvements, OpenMP Added To Engine
Unvanquished 0.56 is out today as the latest major update to this prominent open-source, community-driven shooter game. Unvanquished continues progressing after more than a decade in development for this open-source game and with today’s v0.56 release features improved visuals, OpenMP for CPU-based rendering of skeletal models, and other enhancements… ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Vulkan Linux Driver Lands New Feature To Boost DX12 Game Performance
Intel’s open-source “ANV” Vulkan driver for Linux systems enabled a new feature called BTP+BTI RCC Keying. You may be wondering what it means or stands for, but long story short it helps with the performance of Direct3D 12 (DX12) games running on Linux by way of Valve’s Steam Play with Proton + VKD3D-Proton… ⌘ Read more

Wine 11 Rewrites How Linux Runs Windows Games At the Kernel Level
Linux gamers are seeing massive performance gains with Wine’s new NTSYNC support, “which is a feature that has been years in the making and rewrites how Wine handles one of the most performance-sensitive operations in modern gaming,” reports XDA Developers. Not every game will see a night-and-day difference, but for the games that do benefit fr … ⌘ Read more

Epic Games To Cut More Than 1,000 Jobs As Fortnite Usage Falls
Epic Games is cutting more than 1,000 jobs as usage of its flagship title, Fortnite, falls. “The layoffs aren’t related to AI,” CEO Tim Sweeney noted. Reuters reports: The cuts, along with more than $500 million in savings from lower contracting and marketing spending and unfilled roles would put the company in “a more stable place,” Sweeney said in … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 To Overcome Reporting Limitation For Multiple Batteries Per HID Device
A limitation affecting various gaming headsets, graphic tablets, wireless earbuds, multi-device receivers and more with Linux has been not being able to report multiple batteries per HID device. After patches were proposed last year for dealing with the increasingly common scenario these days of having multiple batteries per device, the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel is set to address this limitation… ⌘ Read more

Nvidia CEO Says He’s ‘Empathetic’ To DLSS 5 Concerns
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says he understands the concerns about “AI slop” with DLSS 5 but insists the feature preserves a game’s underlying geometry and artistic intent. “I think their perspective makes sense, ” said Huang during a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast. “And I could see where they’re coming from because I don’t love AI slop myself. You know, all of t … ⌘ Read more

Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Ban Sports Betting On Prediction Market Platforms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced (PDF) a bill on Monday that could prevent prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing users to wager money on sports events or play casino-style games. This bipartisan bill would not apply to Fa … ⌘ Read more

Qt 6.11 Toolkit Released With “The Same 3D Capabilities As A Game Engine”
Qt 6.11 is out as the latest version of this cross-platform toolkit used by the KDE desktop and widely by both open-source and closed-source applications… ⌘ Read more

Went 2/3 at Magic today: Prosper dominated game 1, Ash and his Knights came within a single planar die roll of winning game 2, and then Atraxa came up with the win in a fairly tight game 3. All in all, not a bad afternoon of Magic.

D7VK 1.6 Overhauls Interaction With DXVK’s D3D9 Backend
D7VK is the open-source project that began as a Direct3D 7 implementation atop the Vulkan API for Linux gamers and with time expanded to support all the way back to Direct3D 3. Out today is D7VK 1.6 with continuing to enhance this D3D compatibility layer atop Vulkan for enhancing retro/vintage gaming on Linux… ⌘ Read more

OneXPlayer Configuration HID Driver Posted For Linux By Valve Developer
Open-source developer Derek Clark of Valve’s Linux engineering team has been responsible for many improvements for gaming handheld devices. Such as Lenovo Legion improvements for Linux, Ayn gaming handheld improvements, and most recently Linux 7.1 set to introduce the new Lenovo Legion Go HID drivers. With the latest Lenovo Legion driver work wrapped up for Linux 7.1, Derek Clark today posted a set of patches providing a OneXPlayer Config … ⌘ Read more

Linux Driver Being Worked On For Pulsar Gaming Mice
A Linux HID driver is being developed for Pulsar branded gaming mice to expose additional information and capabilities… ⌘ Read more

Wine 11.5 Release Is Big: Syscall User Dispatch Feature Supported On Linux
Wine 11.5 is out today as the latest bi-weekly development release for this software to run Windows games and applications on Linux and other platforms. Most exciting with Wine 11.5 is the introduction of the Syscall User Dispatch feature on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.04 Delivers Enhanced Performance For AMD Radeon Linux Gaming
Earlier this month was a preview of the Ubuntu 26.04 performance benefits for NVIDIA Linux gaming while today’s article is providing an early look at how the open-source AMD Radeon gaming experience is looking for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. ⌘ Read more

SteamOS 3.8 Preview Preps For Steam Machine, KDE Plasma Desktop With Wayland By Default
In addition to last night’s Steam client beta with Steam Runtime container support for the client and that SteamRT3 client now a 64-bit build, Valve also released a big preview update to the forthcoming SteamOS 3.8. The SteamOS 3.8 preview release brings initial support for Steam Machine hardware, various handheld gaming device support improvements, various other Steam Deck updates, improved compatibility with newer Intel and AMD p … ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.04 Delivers Enhanced Performance For AMD Radeon Linux Gaming
Earlier this month was a preview of the Ubuntu 26.04 performance benefits for NVIDIA Linux gaming while today’s article is providing an early look at how the open-source AMD Radeon gaming experience is looking for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. ⌘ Read more

Meta Backtracks, Will Keep Horizon Worlds VR Support ‘For Existing Games’
Meta is partially reversing its decision to drop VR support for Horizon Worlds, keeping VR access for existing Unity-based games while shifting future development to a new flatscreen-focused Horizon Engine. UploadVR reports: If you somehow missed it, on Tuesday Meta officially announced that its Horizon Worlds “metaverse” platform … ⌘ Read more

OpenGL Lands New Extension To Benefit Wine
The OpenGL API is still seeing new extensions introduced in 2026. Merged today to the OpenGL Registry is a new extension intended to help Wine usage for 32-bit Windows games/apps on 64-bit Linux systems… ⌘ Read more

Opera GX Web Browser Released For Linux
It’s been a while since most of you probably thought about the Opera web browser, but these days they have been catering their “Opera GX” web browser to gamers. Today they have finally delivered this Opera GX gaming-focused browser for Linux users… ⌘ Read more

Gamers React With Overwhelming Disgust To DLSS 5’s Generative AI Glow-Ups
Kyle Orland writes via Ars Technica: Since deep-learning super-sampling (DLSS) launched on 2018’s RTX 2080 cards, gamers have been generally bullish on the technology as a way to effectively use machine-learning upscaling techniques to increase resolutions or juice frame rates in games. With yesterday’s tease of the upcoming DLSS … ⌘ Read more

Are Split Spacebars the Next Big Gaming Keyboard Trend?
“There are countless upgrades you could make to your gaming setup,” writes PC Gamer’s Jacob Ridley. “A wireless this, a bigger that, a faster thing. But how do you know what’s going to be a genuine upgrade worth investing in? Personally, I think it might be split spacebars.” His argument centers on the fact that spacebars take up a “greedy” amount of keyboard s … ⌘ Read more

New ‘Vibe Coded’ AI Translation Tool Splits the Video Game Preservation Community
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since Andrej Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” just over a year ago, we’ve seen a rapid increase in both the capabilities and popularity of using AI models to throw together quick programming projects with less human time and effort than ever before. … ⌘ Read more

Lenovo Legion Go HID Drivers Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.1
The work by Derek Clark on enhancing the Lenovo Legion Go gaming handheld support for Linux continues panning out nicely. The latest driver effort, the creation of the Lenovo Legion Go and Go S Series HID Drivers to help with controller configuration, is set to be introduced in Linux 7.1… ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Dethrones Arch As ProtonDB’s Top Linux Gamer Desktop Distro
Linux gaming “has gotten to the point where some people claim that Linux runs their games better than Windows does,” according to the Android site XDA Developers. And there’s a new surprise on ProtonDB, an “unofficial” community website with crowdsourced data about videogame compatability with the Linux software/gaming compatability layer P … ⌘ Read more

SuperTux 0.7 Released With Enhanced Graphics, Level Redesign
SuperTux 0.7 officially released overnight for this nostalgic open-source game now seeing its first new release since December 2021. SuperTux 0.7 brings many significant improvements for this open-source game inspired by Super Mario… ⌘ Read more

How a Raspberry Pi Saved the Super Nintendo’s Infamously Inferior Version Of ‘Doom’
“Just the anachronism of seeing Doom, one of the poster children for the moral panic around violent video games, on a Nintendo console is novel,” writes Kotaku — especially with the console’s underpowered “Super FX” coprocessor

Hampered by a nearly unplayable framerate, especially in later levels, and mired by … ⌘ Read more

Gaming Site Editor Jailbreaks an Amazon Echo Show
“A few developers found a way, for now, to turn a few of these increasingly mediocre Amazon Show devices into friendly, useful, open computers,” writes the co-founder of the gaming/tech news site Aftermath. For under $50 each, he bought some used versions of the devices and tested their instructions, partly to escape the full-screen ads Amazon began showing late last year, an … ⌘ Read more

OpenRazer 3.12 Released With Support For Newer Razer Products On Linux
OpenRazer 3.12 was just released today as the newest update to these independently-maintained, open-source drivers for Razer devices on Linux. Paired with the likes of the Polychromatic GUI, OpenRazer allows for a pleasant experience for the Razer gaming peripherals under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s ‘Xbox Mode’ Is Coming To Every Windows 11 PC
In April, Microsoft will be rolling out a full-screen “Xbox mode” to all Windows 11 PCs, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. The move follows last week’s confirmation of its next-generation Xbox console, known internally as Project Helix, which will be capable of running both Xbox titles and PC games. The Verge reports: Technically, you’ve been able to try t … ⌘ Read more

OBS Studio 32.1 Released With WebRTC Simulcast Support
OBS Studio 32.1 is now available for this popular cross-platform desktop screen recording app that is also popular with game live-streaming and other uses… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.04 With GNOME 50 Offering Some Performance Benefits For NVIDIA Linux Gaming
With GNOME 50 that is being used by default with the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release, you may be curious about the out-of-the-box performance especially compared to prior Ubuntu Linux releases – especially with Mutter 50 having some NVIDIA optimizations. In today’s article is a first look at how the NVIDIA Linux gaming performance on Ubuntu 26.04 is looking compared to the current Ubuntu 25.10 release. ⌘ Read more

Valve Faces Second, Class-Action Lawsuit Over Loot Boxes
Valve is facing a new consumer class-action lawsuit two weeks after New York sued the video game company for “letting children and adults illegally gamble” with loot boxes. The new lawsuit is similar, alleging that loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 are “carefully engineered to extract money from consumers, including children, t … ⌘ Read more

Many International Game Developers Plan To Skip GDC In US
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, tens of thousands of game developers and producers will once again gather in San Francisco, as they have since 1988, for the weeklong Game Developers Conference. But this year’s show will be missing many international developers who say they no longer feel comfortable traveling to the United St … ⌘ Read more

Valve/RADV Developers Look At More Per-Game Tuning/Optimizations For Mesa Drivers
RADV Radeon Vulkan driver developers on Valve’s Linux graphics team are evaluating the idea of greater use of per-game/app profiles within this open-source driver and for Mesa drivers at large. Currently for Mesa drivers with DriConf there is the ability to provide per-game/app workarounds while the consideration now is extending that to allow for more per-game optimizations… ⌘ Read more

EA Lays Off Staff Across All Battlefield Studios Following Record-Breaking Battlefield 6 Launch
Electronic Arts has laid off staff across multiple Battlefield studios despite Battlefield 6 being the best-selling game in the U.S. in 2025 and the “biggest launch in franchise history.” According to IGN, the layoffs include workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studi … ⌘ Read more

‘If Lockheed Martin Made a Game Boy, Would You Buy One?’
“If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?” That was the [rhetorical] question The Verge’s Sean Hollister asked when he reviewed ModRetro’s Game Boy-style handheld device back in 2024. He said it “might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made,” though the connection to Palmer Luckey and his defense tech startup Anduril left him conflicted. “I … ⌘ Read more

Wine 11.4 Released With More Improvements
Wine 11.4 is out today as the latest bi-weekly development release of this open-source software that powers Valve’s Steam Play (Proton) and allows for Windows games and applications to run on Linux and macOS… ⌘ Read more

The National Videogame Museum Acquires the Mythical Nintendo Playstation
The National Videogame Museum has acquired an extremely rare MSF-1 development kit, believed to be the oldest surviving prototype of the canceled Nintendo PlayStation. Engadget reports: Nicknamed the Nintendo PlayStation, the idea was that a new CD-ROM format backed by Sony would be added to the cartridge-based Super NES, resultin … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Confirms ‘Project Helix,’ a Next-Gen Xbox That Can Run PC Games
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 80 Level: Microsoft has officially confirmed development of its next-generation Xbox console, currently known internally as Project Helix. While concrete details remain limited, early information suggests the company is positioning the device as a hybrid between a traditional console and … ⌘ Read more

Humble Games’ Former Bosses Buy the Studio’s Back Catalog
Former Humble Games executives have reacquired the publisher’s catalog of more than 50 indie titles from Ziff Davis and relaunched their company as Balor Games. “For the developers we have worked with over the years, this moment is a reunion,” Balor Games CEO Alan Patmore wrote in a statement. “[It has] the same leadership and the same commitment to thoughtfu … ⌘ Read more

FEX 2603 Released With A Partial Fix For The Steam GUI Crashing On AArch64
FEX 2603 as the Valve-sponsored open-source project allowing Linux x86/x86_64 binaries to run on AArch64 Linux – including the likes of Steam and various games as will become important with the Steam Frame – is now out with its newest monthly release… ⌘ Read more