Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

These are today’s gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

GOG has the new Vault of Variety Promo , with up to 95% discounts during 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20260513_vault_of_variety_promo

Steam has two new deals and three sales:

• Drop Duchy will be 40% off until the 19th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2525310/Drop_Duchy/
• Wobbledogs gets a 75% discount until May 26: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1424330/Wobbledogs/
• And here are the three new sales/events:
  • PlayX4 2026 Event features lots of upcoming games and up to 30% deals that will end between the 18th and the 24th of this month: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/PlayX4_2026
• Publisher Skystone Games showcases its upcoming releases and puts its current games on sale, up to 90% off. The deals will end between the 18th and the 26th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/SkystonePublisherSale2026
• Star Your Engine Festival is all about games with vehicles in them, not just cars, with up to 90% discounts. The deals will end between the 19th and the 26th of May: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45993102/sale/startyourengine2026

Fanatical has two new deals:

• The new Star Deal is Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, 40% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/moonlighter-2-the-endless-vault
• The BYO Indie Showcase Bundle features 20 games for your 3+, 5+ or 7+ bundles and will last 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-indie-showcase-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 596.49
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-game-ready-596-49

HIGHLIGHTS
Game Ready for Forza Horizon 6
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games supporting DLSS and RTX technologies including Forza Horizon 6, Directive 8020, and Subnautica 2.

FIXED ISSUES
Fixed Gaming Bugs:

• Enhanced smoothness when DLSS Frame Generation is used with V-SYNC. [5999586]

Fixed General Bugs:

• Foundry Mari 7.0v2 viewport displays flickering [6102981]

Valve made more than 27 million unique images for Counter-Strike listings as part of its new 'major update' to Steam's Community Market
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/valve-made-more-than-27-million-unique-images-for-counter-strike-listings-as-part-of-its-new-major-update-to-steams-community-market/
As Steam has grown over the years, so has the Steam Community Market, the online marketplace where Steam users buy and sell in-game items and other digital stuff to one another. To accommodate that growth, Valve has kicked off a beta test for a major update to the market, designed to make it easier to sell your stuff, and buy other people's stuff.
"Over the past few years, the number of games participating in the Market has grown significantly," Valve wrote. "More than 13,000 games now have Steam Community items available on the Market, and more than 700 have in-game items. These game economies have outgrown the Market’s existing browsing and discovery tools, so it's time for an upgrade."
The upgrade in question is very Valve-like, featuring new and expanded tools that provide "a deeper understanding of item data from games," thereby making it easier to find what you want and understand what you're looking at.
Some of it is very basic stuff—bigger listing images, for instance—and other bits, like improved graphs, dive deeper into the data for the benefit of serious buyers and sellers. The market search function has been upgraded with new dynamic filters, and switching between in-game items and community items has also been simplified. You'll also find similar items now grouped together on a single page, and like Steam itself, "a new, wider layout to accommodate a full-width grid of items for sale."

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

How to Install 4K Textures in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/how-to-install-4k-textures-in-the-legend-of-zelda-twilight-princess-on-pc/
A couple of days ago, we informed you about an unofficial native PC port of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. And, from the looks of it, you can use an HD Texture Pack to overhaul most of its textures to 4K.
In its current state, the texture pack includes over 1.8K custom 4K textures, remade from the ground up. They cover most areas of the game, but some locations, such as some specific interiors or dungeons are not yet fully covered.
According to its creator, this pack is compatible with both recompilation ports (Dusk and Courage Reborn) of Twilight Princess for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. So, no matter your preference, you can download and use it to get a crisper image.
The 4K version of the texture pack is scaled to 8x the default resolution (some textures are as large as 4096×4096). For those who cannot run it, there is also a 1080p version. The 1080p version is scaled to 4x the default resolution (4096×4096 textures become 2048×2048).
You can go ahead and download this HD Texture Pack from here. To install it, you’ll have to copy four folders. These folders are: Languages, QtPlugins, Sys, and User. Then, you’ll have to paste them to the Dusk/texture_replacements folder. And that’s it.
Right now, this unofficial PC port is the best way to experience The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2026. And thanks to this 4K Texture Pack, you can enjoy it with sharp, crisp textures. This is something that will please a lot of Zelda fans. In a way, this feels like a remaster of the GameCube version.
>> There’s a 10 minutes video in the article.

Popular PlayStation emulator clamps down on AI submissions: 'Leave behind something useful to humanity when you're gone, instead of peddling slop'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/popular-playstation-emulator-clamps-down-on-ai-submissions-leave-behind-something-useful-to-humanity-when-youre-gone-instead-of-peddling-slop/
Open-source dev teams have been fighting a rising tide of AI slop contributions ever since LLM tech was loosed upon the Earth, as we documented earlier this year with news that free and open-source game engine Godot was buckling under the weight of AI-generated pull requests (or PRs—that is, code contributions asking to be 'pulled' into the main project).
Well, here's another one. As spotted by GamingOnLinux, popular PS3 emulator RPCS3 has had to come out swinging against the number of LLM-generated pull requests currently being submitted to the project. In a post on X, the devs put it plain: "Please stop submitting AI slop code pull requests to RPCS3. We will start banning those who do without disclosing.
"There are plenty of resources online to learn how to debug and code instead of generating slop that you don't understand and that doesn't work."
Expanding in the replies, the team wrote that RPCS3 has been receiving greater and greater numbers of AI-generated PRs for its macOS build in particular, which most of the project's team do not use save one member, who also handles most of the testing for the emulator on Apple systems. "We have had to revert a few slop PRs that caused big regressions a few times, enough is enough," wrote the team.
In response to questions (and more than a little AI evangelist bellyaching), the devs pointed out that it is not the use of AI code in PRs that is the issue for them, but that it is undisclosed. "We won't ban if disclosed, except for abuse cases, e.g. throwing a lot of random slop at us to see what passes reviews. Hint: programmers that can understand the problem, the solution, and the implementation can write the same code without AI, and tend to use LLMs to automate repetitive code refactoring instead. It is not the case with the AI slop PRs we have seen."

Dark Souls 2 path tracing mod is now available for all, and yes, it inevitably makes the game harder
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/dark-souls-2-path-tracing-mod-is-now-available-for-all-and-yes-it-inevitably-makes-the-game-harder/
Back in February some amazing footage emerged of path tracing implementation in Dark Souls 2. At the time I was pretty impressed, but I didn't have my fingers crossed that the ambitious mod—which is an update to the beloved DS2Lighting Engine Mod—would be available to the public anytime soon.
I was wrong: the DS2LightingEngine mod on Nexus Mods was updated today with path tracing implemented. It's compatible with the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls 2.
The mod actually released on Discord late last month but is now more widely available on Nexus for people who might not be actively following its development. It's a beta, so you should expect some hiccups here and there, but it's an impressive feat and it brings the often scrappy-looking RPG to life.
It's worth pointing out, as per mod creator Ragevitamins on the DSLightingEngine Disord, that path tracing will inevitably make Dark Souls 2 more challenging, which I'm sure is music to the ears of sickos the world around. If there aren't light sources the game's going to be dark, meaning you'll need to use in-game light items like Prism Stones, torches, or the Cast Light spell if you can't see anything. "If there is a cave without [a] possible light source, it means you must be prepared for the dark."
>> The article has, I kid you not, an over 7 HOURS video of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

Former Tekken Boss Katsuhiro Harada Creates New SNK Studio “VS Studio”
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/former-tekken-boss-katsuhiro-harada-creates-new-snk-studio-vs-studio/
SNK Corporation has just announced that it has decided to invest in a newly established game development studio founded by Mr. Katsuhiro Harada. For those who did not know, Harada was the boss of the Tekken franchise.

New Screenshots Released for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-screenshots-released-for-resonance-a-plague-tale-legacy/
Shinobi602 has shared three new screenshots from the third A Plague Tale game, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. This may be our first proper look at some of the game’s environments. So, if you were a fan of the previous two games, you should definitely check them out.