Tuesday news, part two:

WoW next big patch, Undermine(d), gets a release date, starting the countdown clock until my gaming time is entirely consumed with doing donuts in my new ride
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/wow-next-big-patch-undermine-d-gets-a-release-date-starting-the-countdown-clock-until-my-gaming-time-is-entirely-consumed-with-doing-donuts-in-my-new-ride/
World of Warcraft: The War Within has been collecting dust in my digital library (and a bit of subscription money, oops). (...)
If my Skyriding achievements list is any indication, however, I'm going to be very busy come February 25—because that's when WoW's 11.1 patch, Undermine(d), will be releasing, as per a recent Blizzard post. It's also when Plunderstorm will be going away, so ye best be plundering them chicken dinners if ye haven't already, yarr.

Ubisoft announces the 'biggest transformation in Rainbow Six Siege's history' for later this year, so big they're adding an 'X' to the name—But don't call it a sequel
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/ubisoft-announces-the-biggest-transformation-in-rainbow-six-sieges-history-for-later-this-year-so-big-theyre-adding-an-x-to-the-name-but-dont-call-it-a-sequel/
Ubisoft has announced a "new era" for Rainbow Six Siege, which will apparently begin in March with a showcase devoted to the relaunch-slash-reboot of the game as Rainbow Six Siege X. "The R6 team has been working tirelessly to bring to life the biggest transformation in the game's history," reads Ubisoft's announcement post, "and its purpose is to reinforce Rainbow Six Siege's position at the top of tactical first-person shooters by introducing new ways to play, deepened tactical gameplay, refined game feel and major upgrades all around."
>> If Valve can do it with CO:GO, why not them?

The new game from The Witcher 3's director revives the best tradition of Morrowind by letting you kill off 'really important NPCs'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-new-game-from-the-witcher-3s-director-revives-the-best-tradition-of-morrowind-by-letting-you-kill-off-really-important-npcs/
Time was, videogames let you just kill whoever. Plucky sidekick, love interest, authoritarian father figure, plot-critical NPC—all these and more were fodder to a sufficiently trigger-happy player.
The best games to ever do it were, I reckon, Fallout: New Vegas and The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. The former was designed to adjust the plot whenever you summarily executed a critical NPC, while the latter just flashed up a card whenever you merked someone vital to the main quest, suggesting that you might want to not do that. Maybe. If you like.
These days, though, we baby all our VIPs, and the best you can expect is to knock them out for a bit. Not so in The Blood of Dawnwalker, the new, vampiric RPG from former Witcher 3 quest lead Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz (and former Witcher 3 game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz) and studio Rebel Wolves. In a chat with GamesRadar, Tomaszkiewicz says they're getting old-school with it: "we allow you to kill off a lot of NPCs, and a lot of them can be really important NPCs." You are playing a creature of the night, after all.

Japanese patent attorney, burdened with a party pooper's knowledge, says Nintendo having 22 out of 23 Palworld-targeting claims 'rejected' in the US is business as usual
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/japanese-patent-attorney-burdened-with-a-party-poopers-knowledge-says-nintendo-having-22-out-of-23-palworld-targeting-claims-rejected-in-the-us-is-business-as-usual/
Nintendo's suing of Palworld has, as one might imagine, set the internet on fire. Primarily because most people like a good underdog story, and also because Nintendo has built a reputation for being very, very litigious.
As such, cheers went up on the internet when it was uncovered by GamesFray that Nintendo's patent claims, which primarily seem poised to target Palworld, had suffered 22 rejected claims (out of 23) in the US—which naturally made headlines since, on digital paper, this sounds like a big win. In practice? It's apparently business as usual.

Toby Fox is still working on more Deltarune, folks, game development is just complicated
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/toby-fox-is-still-working-on-more-deltarune-folks-game-development-is-just-complicated/
Much-loved Undertale developer Tony Fox's followup-spinoff-thing Deltarune has another two chapters on the way, following the free releases in 2019 and 2021. But what's the status? Well, it's still steadily getting finished—With Chapters 3 and 4 pretty much done after the last few years of development, they're finally in QA, testing, and bugfixing and set to be released, when, you know, they're done.

If you're a fan of giant robots I urge you to watch the Mecharashi cinematic trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/if-youre-a-fan-of-giant-robots-i-urge-you-to-watch-the-mecharashi-cinematic-trailer/
I'm not immune to an unsubtle display of the very best tropes one genre has to offer all in one place. I'm especially not immune to it when it's a genre I love. So that's why I'm writing this: Because the trailer for Mecharashi is exactly what I want from a mech game trailer and I like it a lot.
(...)
Mecharashi, scheduled to release this year, is a tactical turn-based RPG about battles between big old robots. It's focused on a parts-based construction system where you build mecha with your own choice of weapons and bits and then take them on a journey through a dangerous war where the player's mercenary unit will inadvertently become important figures in the war they fight—and in history. It's also looking really free-to-play, for the record, and packed with microtransactions. Bummer, but cool trailer.

Dead by Daylight delays its existing update plans for a 'substantial quality of life initiative', which includes adding a surrender mode and cracking down on 'extreme hiding'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/dead-by-daylight-delays-its-existing-update-plans-for-a-substantial-quality-of-life-initiative-which-includes-adding-a-surrender-mode-and-cracking-down-on-extreme-hiding/
In one of the more unusual Steam updates I've read lately, Dead by Daylight's developer Behaviour Interactive has announced it is suspending plans for numerous hotly anticipated features in favour of what it terms a 'substantial quality of life initiative' that will run throughout 2025.
As the update explains, Behaviour's focus this year was supposed to be on expanding DBD's existing offering, adding new character updates, limited time events, event modifiers, and more. But all these plans are now delayed, with the studio instead addressing "many longstanding concerns and frustrations our players have been experiencing."

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 players are seized by the spirit of generosity, band together to buy strangers in need over $1,500 in copies
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/kingdom-come-deliverance-2-players-are-seized-by-the-spirit-of-generosity-band-together-to-buy-strangers-in-need-over-usd1-500-in-copies/
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a game about war in medieval Bohemia, and all the grisly unpleasantness that entails—like, for instance, being branded a criminal forevermore due to simple mistakes, or worse, just straight-up getting your head lopped off. Its playerbase, however, seems altogether more wholesome: As proved by a recent gifting frenzy that took place on the game's subreddit.
A thread, posted by user verdantsf, offered a whole medieval armory of copies to players who couldn't afford them: "A while back, I was going through a rough patch," they write. "I was in a new town without a lot of support and finances were tight. I simply didn't have enough money for entertainment at all, let alone PC games. Thankfully, I had a gamer buddy pitch in. Being able to immerse myself in other worlds helped immensely with stress and my mental health. Things are much better these days and I'd like to pay it forward."
Verdantsf then proceeded to give 10 copies total—that's around $600 (£500) worth of Henry, but it didn't stop there. Seemingly inspired by their generosity, fellow gift-givers took to the thread's comments to pitch in, too.
>> It’s good to see a feel good story every now and then, amidst the depressing news we usually get.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is offering one lucky player the chance to be made into an NPC for charity, but you'll have to beat the current winning bid of $11,050 first
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/the-elder-scrolls-6-is-offering-one-lucky-player-the-chance-to-be-made-into-an-npc-for-charity-but-youll-have-to-beat-the-current-winning-bid-of-usd11-050-first/
Bethesda is currently offering up the chance for one player to be created into an NPC for The Elder Scrolls 6. The exclusive experience is being offered as part of an online auction in aid of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and some big bids have already been made.

Bethesda refuses to announce that Oblivion remaster to spite me specifically, so I'm consoling myself with this gamejam based on its terri-brilliant persuasion wheel
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/bethesda-refuses-to-announce-that-oblivion-remaster-to-spite-me-specifically-so-im-consoling-myself-with-this-gamejam-based-on-its-terri-brilliant-persuasion-wheel/
I am more and more convinced that an insidious cabal of games industry executives—headed by 'Todd Howard' and 'Phil Spencer'—is conspiring to prevent the rumoured Oblivion remaster/remake from releasing to drive me, specifically, to madness. No matter how much I will it, the game has been a no-show at every splashy, trailer-filled videogame event for ages now. Maybe it never existed at all.
Well, no matter. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go up the mountain at a weird angle so as to cheese the game into allowing it. A gaggle of hero-devs has announced the Wheeljam (via RPS), "a week-long game jam focused around the persuasion minigame mechanic from The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion."

GTA 3 almost had us obeying traffic laws before Rockstar yanked it out, and if you're wondering if GTA 6 will bring it back: 'I'm sure they'll realize it's a bad idea'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/gta-3-almost-had-us-obeying-traffic-laws-before-rockstar-yanked-it-out-and-if-youre-wondering-if-gta-6-will-bring-it-back-im-sure-theyll-realize-its-a-bad-idea/
Bad news folks: turns out Grand Theft Auto 3 could have been really cool. In a post on X, the Everything App (via GamesRadar), former Rockstar dev Obbe Vermeij has been reminiscing about his time on the era-defining third GTA, and recalls that—for a brief, shining moment—the game actually required you to obey traffic lights.

So apparently Nvidia removed native support for PhysX from the GeForce 50 series for some reason.

It's a hell of a chip. Not perfect, mind you, but it's impressive.

Let's hope Minisforum or some other company puts it in a mini-PC and allow it to run at full power. It will be interesting to see what it's really capable of.

And if Asus uses it for the Ally 2, we could also see how it performs at less than 40W.

With the price increase from Asus and other that Darc Requiem posted yesterday, that lack of supply was more than expected.

So it begins. Let's hope it stays only in the US and doesn't affect the rest of us.

Yeah, saw it at DSOG. It's weird for them to do that, unless supporting it for 32-bit games caused soe trouble with the new architecture? I don't know.

Oh, well. Welcome to the AMD side of PhysX, I guess.

nVidia is dropping support for 32-bit CUDA to finish the move to a 64-bit only world/ecosystem. (Only took 20+ years)

32bit PhysX piggybacked off 32-bit CUDA, hence why it also got the cut.

I don't know why nVidia just didn't implement a compatibility layer to translate 32bit operations to 64bit, but I digress, I am sure modders will make it instead.

The fact that they didn't makes me suspect it could need hardware emulation.

You can already run PhysX on the CPU but since it depends on basic SSE or even older instructions with some two orders of magnitude less pipelines available, it runs like horse's ass.

But it run like crap because Nvidia nerfed it so it only worked well on its GPUs.

The thing is: when was the last time a game advertized PhysX as a selling point? Ages ago. It no longer matters and Nvidia has decided that it's no longer worth it to spend time on it.

It's the problem of propietary tech, instead of open source.

Time to buy 750 Tis and use them as dedicated 32bit phyx gpus /s

Don't give them ideas...

Yeah, that price is extreme.

Hardwarecanucks made a review with the Z 13 Tablet, which has a 70W TDP, and it not only keeps up with Laptops where the GPU alone (4060 and 4070) has a 70W TDP, but even beats them in 1% lows even when the average FPS don't in most tests despite manually being limited to the same 8GB VRAM as it's competitors.

Also, seriously ASUS, limiting the graphics to just 4GB as standard when Gaming needs at least 8 and AI workloads even more than that?

Now that's some long-term support! I honestly didn't expect anybody still supporting DOS-based OS to this day outside of maybe some very specialized software that runs on less than 1000 computers total, or things that haven't gotten updated in a long time (looking at you FRAPS!).

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti “Blackwell” Graphics Cards Review Roundup

https://videocardz.com/197556/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-blackwell-graphics-cards-review-roundup

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-ventus-3x/34.html

I do like techpowerup has different MSRPs listed in cost per dollar charts and not just official

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-ventus-3x/36.html

ASUS confirms ROG XG 2025 eGPU with up to GeForce RTX 5090 24GB Laptop GPU and Thunderbolt 5 is set to launch on February 25

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-confirms-rog-xg-2025-egpu-with-up-to-geforce-rtx-5090-24gb-laptop-gpu-and-thunderbolt-5-is-set-to-launch-on-february-25

AMD & Intel GPU Market Share Starts Picking Up Pace In Korean Markets, Mainly Due To NVIDIA’s Poor Availability

https://wccftech.com/amd-intel-gpu-market-share-starts-picking-up-pace-in-korean-markets/

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D spotted on Geekbench showing 15% ST improvement vs 7900X3D series

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-and-9900x3d-spotted-on-geekbench-showing-15-st-improvement-vs-7900x3d-series

HP confirms GeForce RTX 5060 and GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPUs

https://videocardz.com/newz/hp-confirms-geforce-rtx-5060-and-geforce-rtx-5050-laptop-gpus