The PC is one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, and one that’s constantly changing. Here at The Verge we cover every aspect, including the latest hardware developments from companies like Nvidia and Logitech, massively popular games like Fortnite and Overwatch, and hugely influential digital platforms like Steam and itch.io.
It looks like Nvidia may have yet another issue with its flagship RTX 5090 card — a noted leaker claims it shipped out partially defective chips with slightly worse performance. Maybe check your card with GPU-Z and see if it’s showing the proper number of 176 ROPs?
It’s not every card, but reports are coming in of Zotac, MSI, Gigabyte, Manli, and even an Nvidia Founders Edition card with missing ROPs.
The PC demo extravaganza runs from February 24th through March 3rd. You can get a preview of some of the games you’ll be able to check out in Valve’s trailer.
Bethesda has updated Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with DLSS 4, Multi Frame Generation, and even FSR 3.1 Frame Gen support. That’s great news if you somehow managed to purchase an RTX 50-series card recently, or if you want to try out AMD’s frame generation tech. Path tracing is also now supported on AMD and Intel GPUs.
[bethesda.net]
The latest Nvidia drivers add support for DLSS 4-enabled Multi Frame Generation in Marvel Rivals, allowing a 5090 to deliver up to 630 “fake” frames per second in 1080p.
Even if you have older hardware than the likely-hard-to-find 5070 Ti, the release notes (pdf) for 572.47 say it also addresses a bug I’d experienced recently, where it could crash your system instead of waking up the monitor from an extended sleep.
Unlike the Steam Workshop or local content mods, this SDK gives mod makers the ability to change, extend or rewrite TF2, making anything from small tweaks to complete conversions possible.
The SDK is licensed to users on a non-commercial basis, meaning that any mod created using the SDK must be free, and any content in those mods must be free. TF2 mods may be published on the Steam Store, and after publication will appear as new games in the Steam game list.
Free total conversions for Half-Life and Half-Life 2 arguably made me a PC gamer. Can’t wait to see what people build.
[teamfortress.com]
0The RTX 5070 Ti delivers almost identical performance to the RTX 4080 with slightly less power draw.
Asus’s new ROG Flow Z13 is available for preorder. I tested a preproduction model as a ridiculous gaming handheld, and I’m working on a review of the final hardware.
As a 13-inch gaming tablet starting at $2,099.99 ($100 more than announced), the Z13 is a pricey, niche machine that falls somewhere between the Steam Deck and a full-sized gaming laptop. But it’s charming, with impressive real-world performance.
Stay tuned for the review.
In 2024, Epic saw 295 million Epic Games Store PC users, up 25 million year-over-year, according to a blog post. 595 million free games were claimed during the year as well.
Epic is promising a bunch of improvements to the Epic Games Store in 2025, including gifting, preloading, and multi-platform social features.
After spending its first few months on the Epic Games Store, BotW but make it fashion game Infinity Nikki is finally heading to Steam. Although developer Infold Games hasn’t given an exact release date, it is holding a giveaway whereby players will get all kinds of goodies whenever the game hits a wishlist milestone. The first couple milestones are generic prizes but the later two promise big surprises...which I want. So do me a favor and hit that wishlist button.
That’s just over two weeks from today — it’ll have a YouTube livestream at 8AM ET (that’s 5AM for me on the West Coast!) to show off its half-announced RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT and hopefully reveal their all-important pricing.
The company has set expectations that these will not compete with Nvidia’s latest and greatest on performance, but here’s hoping they won’t cost so dang much. They’ll ship in early March.
Though it seems like Nightreign wants to court the Fortnite crowd, it’s still very much an Elden Ring experience.
Nvidia announced in a post on X that laptops running RTX 50-series GPUs will go up for preorder on February 25th. It’s likely that laptop manufacturers will announce shipping dates and further details beyond this small tease soon.
I covered the RTX 5090 melting power connector situation yesterday, and I was surprised at the amount of people quick to blame “user error” for someone using a third-party cable. YouTuber der8auer has now examined one of the burnt cables, and he’s found that this isn’t user error and could be related to a current distribution problem instead. Nvidia still hasn’t commented on the situation.
Chris Plante! How dare you suggest the device I called “the most exciting PC handheld” is better than the Steam Deck because it’s “on steroids in every way?”
Plante, direct-messaging me on Slack:
For me being on steroids is not inherently a good thing. people’s hearts explode and their privates shrink
Oh! Well then. That DOES sound like the pre-production model they sent me. For a better “Steam Deck Plus” experience in the meanwhile, try this!
AMD announced the new RDNA 4 cards at CES without a release date beyond “Q1,” and AMD exec David McAfee later narrowed that window to “March.” Now, we just heard AMD CEO Lisa Su narrow it further to “early March” on the company’s Q4 earnings call. The company’s reportedly planning an RDNA 4 event at the end of this month.
Don’t expect them to compete with Nvidia’s greatest on performance — but perhaps on price? That would be very nice.
