This might actually be the death of pc gaming for some time. Least with crypto, the components were still being produced and were accessible to the consumers, just at a highly inflated price. But discontinuing both the 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB with the possibility of 5070 as well is truly an end game move even if it's until vram prices stabilize. Either Radeon and Intel will soon follow or Nvidia handed them the pc market on a diamond platter.

The price of ram isn't going to help either.  I looked for fun, when I built my PC a few years ago, my ram was $130, that exact ram today on Newegg is $470.  Part of me wishes I would have gone 64 gb, not that I need it.  But good god.  I feel like a lucky SoB, my computer was expensive but will age far better than I expected.  

Yep, confirmed by Asus.

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-reportedly-says-rtx-5070-ti-is-no-longer-being-produced-rtx-5060-ti-16gb-to-follow

NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 50 allocation scheme prioritizes the top SKU in each memory tier

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidias-new-geforce-rtx-50-allocation-scheme-prioritizes-the-top-sku-in-each-memory-tier

JEMC should be glad he got a 9060XT when he did lol

NVIDIA Has Rumoredly Cut Down GPU Supply To AICs By 15-20%; Also, No New GPUs This Year

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-has-rumoredly-cut-down-gpu-supply-to-aics-by-15-20-percent/

PlayStation 5 Pro expected to receive PSSR 2.0 update this quarter

https://videocardz.com/newz/playstation-5-pro-expected-to-receive-pssr-2-0-update-this-quarter

ASUS reportedly says RTX 5070 Ti is no longer being produced, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB to follow

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-reportedly-says-rtx-5070-ti-is-no-longer-being-produced-rtx-5060-ti-16gb-to-follow

From the HUB video linked by Darc

Two Intel board partners say they have not received Arc B770 test boards (yet)

https://videocardz.com/newz/two-intel-board-partners-say-they-have-not-received-arc-b770-test-boards-yet

Monster Hunter Wilds may run faster with more DLC installed, Redditor discovers

https://videocardz.com/newz/monster-hunter-wilds-may-run-faster-with-more-dlc-installed-redditor-discovers

Intel says laptop makers are sitting on 'about 9 to 12 months' of stock, and it might be the key to surviving the RAM crunch

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/intel-says-laptop-makers-are-sitting-on-about-9-to-12-months-of-stock-and-it-might-be-the-key-to-surviving-the-ram-crunch

After Stacked L3, AMD Is Now Exploring Ways To Stack Even The L2 Cache On Its Future Chips With Better Latency Than Traditional Designs

https://wccftech.com/after-stacked-l3-amd-is-exploring-ways-to-stack-l2-cache-on-its-future-chips/

RPCS3 Rolls Out Windows ARM64 Builds, Expanding The Compatibility Of The Emulator Even Further

https://wccftech.com/rpcs3-rolls-out-windows-arm64-builds/

SK hynix Denies Rumors of Exiting the Consumer Business for Now, but the DRAM Supply Situation Looks Deteriorating With Time

https://wccftech.com/sk-hynix-denies-rumors-of-exiting-the-consumer-business/

AMD & Intel Are Reportedly Considering to Raise Server CPU Prices by Up to 15% as Hyperscaler Buildout Has Drained Out Inventory

https://wccftech.com/amd-intel-are-reportedly-considering-to-raise-server-cpu-prices-by-up-to-15-percent/

Back To The 2010s: DDR3 Motherboards Are Seeing Significant Growth In Sales

https://wccftech.com/back-to-the-2010s-ddr3-motherboards-are-seeing-significant-growth-in-sales/

AMD To Give Radeon GPU Owners All The Essential AI Tools As An Optional Feature Within Its Next Adrenalin Drivers

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-ai-bundle-for-radeon-gpus-adrenalin-drivers-21st-january/

Here are the Thursday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

The Epic Store gives away two games this week:

• Styx: Master of Shadows : https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/styx-master-of-shadows-4d9ab3
• Styx: Shards of Darkness - Deluxe Edition : https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/styx-shards-of-darkness-77c030

Next week, they’ll give away Rustler - Grand Theft Horse.

GOG has two new sales:

• Toge Productions Anniversary Sale features games up to 80% off during 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/260115_toge_anniversary_sale
• Revolution Software Publisher Sale puts its gaes on sale with up to 90% discounts during the same 7 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20250115_revolution_publisher_sale

Steam has new deals and Sales:

• Backseat Drivers has a demo and a 25% discount that will last until the 21st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3558400/Backseat_Drivers/
• Wordatro! also has a demo, but will be 30% off until the same January 21st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3140120/Wordatro/
• Mage and Monsters II gets a 35% discount until January 21: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2481640/Mage_and_Monsters_II/
• MyVoiceZoo is going to be 20% off until the 28th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4015530/MyVoiceZoo/
• These are the sales:
  • Publisher/developer aNCHOR Inc. presents its Muv-Luv New Year Sale, with up to 60% discounts until January 28: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36850264/sale/Muv-LuvNewYearSale
  • Publisher Chubby Pixel puts its games up to 94% off until the same 28th of January: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/10153659/sale/PublisherSale

Humble Bundle has two new listings for us:

• Playful Platformers Bundle features up to 9 games to get during the next 20 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/playful-platformers-2026
• Vibrant Visual Novels Bundle has up to 11 items to get (10 games plus 1 DLC) during 20 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/vibrant-visual-novels

Fanatical’s new Best of Indie Legends - Build your own Bundle (New Year 2026) has 22 games for your 2+, 4+ or 7+ game bundles during the next 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/best-of-indie-legends-build-your-own-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Bully Online, the ambitious mod that brought multiplayer and more to Rockstar's classic school sim, shuts down a month after launch: 'This was not something we wanted'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/bully-online-the-ambitious-mod-that-brought-multiplayer-and-more-to-rockstars-classic-school-sim-shuts-down-a-month-after-launch-this-was-not-something-we-wanted/
We expressed concerns about Bully Online, a massively ambitious mod that promised to bring multiplayer and a host of new systems to Rockstar's classic school sim, when we ran across it in November 2025. It looked great, but the initial release was limited to people willing to pay for it through the mod team's Ko-Fi page, and that seemed like the sort of thing almost guaranteed to attract unwelcome attention from Rockstar's lawyers. Sure enough, just a month after the mod launched, it's gone.
"The Bully Online project is shutting down. Thank you all for playing," a message posted on the website of YouTube and project lead Swegta (via Insider Gaming) now states. The Bully Online page on Swegta's website is already gone, as is the Mod DB page, although it can still be seen through the Internet Archive.
A more detailed message about the closure was posted today on Swegta's Discord server. "The Bully Online project is shutting down forever, which unfortunately means all the following is going to happen in 24 hours: our official Bully Online server (on swegta.com) will be shutdown, development of scripts for Bully Online will stop, the source code will be removed from swegta.com, all our webpages referring to it will be removed, the launcher downloads will taken down, and all Bully Online account data will be permanently deleted."
The dev team has thus far stayed mum on exactly why the mod was so suddenly deep-sixed, but said a forthcoming video from Swegta will get into the details. "For now though, know this was not something we wanted."

GAMING NEWS

One Modder Almost Doubled Monster Hunter Wilds’ Performance
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/one-modder-almost-doubled-monster-hunter-wilds-performance/
Monster Hunter Wilds was one of the worst-optimized games of 2025. Now, while Capcom released a big update last month (and promised two more updates for next year), the game still runs poorly on pretty much all platforms. However, it appears that a modder was able to almost double the game’s performance.
According to Redditor ‘de_Tylmarande‘, the game is constantly checking if a player has all of the game’s DLCs. This routine is essentially the primary cause of the CPU/RAM issues. By simply bypassing this check, de_Tylmarande was able to almost double the performance of Monster Hunter Wilds.
To prove those claims, the modder shared a video. As we can see, without the mod, the game runs with a minimum of 24FPS and an average of 30FPS. By simply bypassing the DLC checks, performance skyrockets. With the mod, de_Tylmarande got a minimum of 43FPS and an average of 49FPS. As we can see, he got close to doubling the game’s performance. To be more precise, the modder was able to improve the minimum framerate by 79% and the average framerate by 63%.
Sadly, de_Tylmarande has not shared his mod with the public yet. However, he did inform Capcom about his findings. If Capcom does not implement this fix in its two upcoming PC performance updates, the modder plans to release his mod so that everyone can use it.

IO Interactive has lowered the CPU, VRAM & RAM requirements for 007 First Light
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/io-interactive-has-lowered-the-cpu-vram-ram-requirements-for-007-first-light/
Earlier this month, IO Interactive released the official PC requirements for 007 First Light, which raised a lot of questions. However, the team has now released an update in which it lowered the CPU, VRAM, and RAM requirements. So, let’s take a look at the revised PC requirements.
>> They now make a lot more sense.

Subliminal May Be One of the Most Photorealistic Unreal Engine 5 Games Yet
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/subliminal-may-be-one-of-the-most-photorealistic-unreal-engine-5-games-yet/
Now here is something that completely passed under my radar. In 2025, Accidental Studios released a demo for its upcoming psychological horror game, Subliminal. And, as you will see in the video featured below, this is one of the most photorealistic games using Unreal Engine 5.

The second part of the gaming news.

A Steam glitch convinced some Fallout fans a New Vegas remaster was imminent, only to have the rug yanked out from under them: 'Slowly turning into r/HalfLife'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fallout/a-steam-glitch-convinced-some-fallout-fans-a-new-vegas-remaster-was-imminent-only-to-have-the-rug-yanked-out-from-under-them-slowly-turning-into-r-halflife/
Two things I believe to be true are: One—given the success of last year's Oblivion remaster, remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are all-but assured. Two—they probably won't drop any time soon. (...)
It doesn't feel like a lot of space to launch a humdinger of a Fallout remaster, is my point. But fans of those games are quite keen on the notion of prettied-up versions, and a recent Steam glitch had a few of them ready to declare that the prophecy would soon be fulfilled (by which I mean: a remaster or two were imminent).
Fans over on Reddit have noticed something hinky going on with Fallout 3 and New Vegas over on Steam. Namely, the fact that if you try to leave a user review for either of those games at the moment, you'll be blocked from doing so, and get a big block of red text that says "You must wait until this product has been released before writing a review for it."

One of The Elder Scrolls Online's oldest problems, overland difficulty, is finally getting addressed—but the devs are 'starting really small' because 'we didn't want to take a big swing and miss'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/one-of-the-elder-scrolls-onlines-oldest-problems-overland-difficulty-is-finally-getting-addressed-but-the-devs-are-starting-really-small-because-we-didnt-want-to-take-a-big-swing-and-miss/
MMOs—particularly the long-lived ones—have a bit of a design problem. Given they're worlds built for all sorts of players, they need to have enough bite to challenge vets while also not scaring away the greenhorns. Which is fine, you can have hardcore raids: Except even the most skilled players aren't going to be spending their time there.
They'll be in the overworld, which—given it makes up most of the game—can't be too challenging. But if the overworld is boring, then people will… y'know, get bored. If I'm asleep at my keyboard for eight out of 10 hours, that's not exactly great design.
This is something the Elder Scrolls Online has been struggling with for years—and, alongside plenty of other things, it's finally being addressed. Towards the tail-end of Season 0 of its new seasonal structure, the game will be getting overworld difficulty functions.

Hopes for an eventual Anthem private server resurrection ignited as former executive producer says code for running the game locally 'is there to be salvaged and recovered'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/hopes-for-an-eventual-anthem-private-server-resurrection-ignited-as-former-executive-producer-says-code-for-running-the-game-locally-is-there-to-be-salvaged-and-recovered/
As of roughly 2:05 pm EST on Monday, Anthem is really, truly dead. In a world of fan-run private server game resurrections, however, does it have to stay dead? Maybe not. At the end of a lengthy tell-all video about Anthem's legendarily troubled development (via Eurogamer), former BioWare executive producer and Anthem project lead Mark Darrah indicated that the tech for running Anthem locally once existed—and could, theoretically, exist again.

Quarantine Zone has been patched so now you can actually detect people smuggling hand grenades in their butts
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/quarantine-zone-has-been-patched-so-now-you-can-actually-detect-people-smuggling-hand-grenades-in-their-butts/
As survivors of the zombie apocalypse trudge into your military outpost, one by one, they wearily submit to your examinations in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. Examine their eyes, their lungs, and their skin for any signs of the zombie virus—but don't forget to look deeper, too.
A lot deeper.

Here's one big benefit to Hytale not being on Steam: its refund policy is way better than Valve's
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/heres-one-big-benefit-to-hytale-not-being-on-steam-its-refund-policy-is-way-better-than-valves/
I'm pretty heavily Steam-pilled at this point. When I want to play a game and it comes out on a platform other than Steam, I always sigh dramatically and mutter a curse under my breath.
(...)
However, there are sometimes benefits to a game not being on Steam, and that's the case with sandbox adventure Hytale, which launched yesterday. Yes, you've gotta register for an account and download and sign into a new launcher, but there's a silver lining to that mild inconvenience: Hytale's return policy.
>> By the way, despite its past history, Riot has congratulated them for launching the game into early access (link).

With only 2,300 hours to go until a full Ecco the Dolphin reveal, new details emerge about the forthcoming reboot
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/with-only-2-300-hours-to-go-until-a-full-ecco-the-dolphin-reveal-new-details-emerge-about-the-forthcoming-reboot/
Plans for a new Ecco the Dolphin game were quietly revealed last May, in addition to remasters of the 1992 original and its sequel Tides of Time. At the time a website was launched bearing a 8,500 hour countdown. Andy Chalk did the maths way back then, and figured out that the countdown would end some time in April 2026.
Which is still nearly four months away. Nevertheless, here we are in January 2026 with a bit more info on these forthcoming Ecco games. It's now confirmed that new California-based studio A&R Atelier is developing the new game, with original Ecco producer Ed Annunziata on board as chief creative officer.

Monster Train 2's first DLC is transforming the game with a giant new mode and the hammer-swinging Railforged clan
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/monster-train-2-destiny-of-the-railforged-details/
A tough new play format and an anvil-slapping set of new units are coming in early February for 2025's best card game.
Monster Train 2's first paid DLC, Destiny of the Railforged, will add a new clan to the game, the Railforged, as well as an expansive new mode called Soul Savior. And outside of this paid update, one of the original Monster Train's clans is also being added to Monster Train 2 for free. No price has yet been announced for the DLC.

And here are the rest of the news… which, to be honest, feels like could have been most of them, but whatever:

Rockstar prepares for the Roblox-ification of GTA 6 by launching an official mods marketplace, with one bundle costing just under $500
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/rockstar-prepares-for-the-roblox-ification-of-gta-6-by-launching-an-official-mods-marketplace-with-one-bundle-costing-just-under-usd500/

Ron Perlman says he did the Fallout intro for $40 and a sandwich, he's never played it, and he's not interested in trying: 'The whole Fallout thing is a mystery to me'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/ron-perlman-says-he-did-the-fallout-intro-for-usd40-and-a-sandwich-hes-never-played-it-and-hes-not-interested-in-trying-the-whole-fallout-thing-is-a-mystery-to-me/

Umamusume developer Cygames bullied into apology by outraged horse girl enthusiasts after announcing AI subsidiary: 'We sincerely apologize for the concern we've caused'
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/umamusume-developer-cygames-bullied-into-apology-by-outraged-horse-girl-enthusiasts-after-announcing-ai-subsidiary-we-sincerely-apologize-for-the-concern-weve-caused/

Disco Elysium had so much text it broke the branching narrative software: 'we were writing too much'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/disco-elysium-had-so-much-text-it-broke-the-branching-narrative-software-we-were-writing-too-much/

Despite an incredibly tough 2025 for ZeniMax, The Elder Scrolls Online's leadership is hopeful: 'We've definitely got our eyes on the future, because this is our home'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/despite-an-incredibly-tough-2025-for-zenimax-the-elder-scrolls-onlines-leadership-is-hopeful-weve-definitely-got-our-eyes-on-the-future-because-this-is-our-home/

That's awful news and almost leaves the biggest part of the market, the one buying between $300 and $1000 orphan of any Nvidia GPUs except for 5070s on smaller shipments. And that can also change for the worse.

Not a good time for competition.

We'll see if AMD and Intel can take advantage of this or if they stay true to themselves and take this once in a lifetime opportunity and waste is.

I sure am. it's a bit louder than my old one while gaming, but that's what headphones are for.

It's been over a year since Intel launched the B580 and they've been hyping the B770 in the most a awkward and confusing way possible for several months now, only to have nothing to show or, apparently, even share with its board partners.

Intel, get its sh*t together!

By the way, since gaming on Linux is gaining attraction:

Gaming on Linux just got a bump with new Wine 11 improvements that'll make for a better Proton on SteamOS, too
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-on-linux-just-got-a-bump-with-new-wine-11-improvements-thatll-make-for-a-better-proton-on-steamos-too/
If you currently game on Linux, or plan to in the future, game support has just been improved once again. Wine, a compatibility app for running non-Linux games on Linux has just hit version 11.0.

You can find the full list of changes in the release notes, but there are a few main takeaways (via Gaming on Linux). The first is that WoW64 mode, which can run 32-bit applications, is now considered fully supported and even includes 16-bit apps. As Windows can't natively run 16-bit applications, it's now as hard (or as easy) to run 16-bit apps on Linux as on Windows.

(...)

Wine updates aren't just notable for how they will improve Linux on your gaming PC, but, as Valve's Proton uses Wine, these improvements have a knock-on effect on SteamOS, ie Steam Deck, or any other distro tapped into Proton. With the Steam Machine set to launch this year, we can expect improvements there, too.

Who ever wrote this headline deserves a substantial raise.