StooMonster

360euros

Holy heck what a bargain.

The OS optionality available with AMD GPUs is excellent, competition makes things better: Bazzite, SteamOS, many other Linux and even Windows if people so choose.

The majority of the market is NVIDIA GPUs, it's going to amazing when this hardware is similarly supported.

That's the tipping point for Windows in my opinion.

@AmazingCass Hurrah for competition in game engines, and not the increasing monopoly of Unreal Engine.

Cross-save? Hello double-dip!

This should be a must for every multi-platform game in 2026.

ROI knocks on the door.

Hey Nintendo, for what it's worth … I will pre-order a Switch 2 OLED edition.

Haven't bought a Switch 2 nor any software for it yet, but will do once I have an OLED edition.

Still rocking a DeathAdder V2 — still like a wired gaming mouse — still awesome.

The fact that it's so technically good on PlayStation 5 Pro makes it likely that I'll buy this — albeit eventually, not right now — as this has happened with many other titles.

They look gorgeous, even if other problems, hello Ubisoft and various publishers who put in the PS5 Pro effort … you win custom from me.

Sad graphics nutter that I am.

I think it's clear that the reason they are 1080p at 60fps is that Microsoft already know that they're annoying their Xbox customers but creating these Playstation exclusives — we don't need to spend any money on Xbox, our people can stick with back-compat — so they're not going to offer better than that.

• 4K … nope
• 120fps for 1080p (and probably 4K to be honest) … nope

This is purely a marketing decision, not a technical one.

@themightyant I recently bought an OLED 1440p Ultrawide too — it's brilliant.

Fewer pixels to render than 4K but I think the 21:9 aspect ratio is fantastic; at this sub-4K resolution my 5070ti runs everything maxed out and often 240fps.

Really enjoying it very much indeed.

Smells like a benchmark article to me.

14 layers of management, talk about corporate bloat. How many useless meetings do you think 14 layers of management produces? How many managers and non-devs does that require to sustain that level of beaurocracy?

Reducing the number of layers to a maximum of 5 and a best practice of 3 should free up significant amounts of developers time so they can be doing actual game development and not attending endless pointless meetings.

Do people think they are firing the devs and keeping the managers?

@wsjudd there's an update to this story, you might to write up.

I heard that Sony's current 90%+ digital figure needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Firstly, it includes "Indies" that are digital only, also includes "live service" games that are digital only; so the numbers of 'digital only' are boosted.

Secondly, when comparing like-for-like that Sony first party studios still have a significant portion of their sales as disc — albeit decreasing all the time.

Finally, some third-party games, where a disc might stay permanently in the drive, such as FIFA or CoD that the physical media still outsells the digital version — perhaps because they're gifted?

I took it the 90%+ at face value, but now I think they may be premature here and need to keep offering optical discs to those that want them.

Although that's going to be difficult as they've already repurposed most of the Blu-ray pressing plant to optical lenses manufacturing.

@Max_the_German They have a patent for that, and I believe you can do it with an Xbox Series and an Xbox One console.

@Kingsbane But it's not a massive order, that's kinda the point.

Key point that most people are missing, is that it isn't just the optical discs themselves — that are getting pressed in fewer and fewer numbers.

It's that optical disc reading drives as components for the consolers are similarly getting more rare — PCs dropped drives, BD players have mostly stopped production — and the idea that they can guarantee sourcing DB drives in their supply chain for another eight years after launch data is laughable.

Can you make a computer with floppy disc drives today? Same thing.

@themightyant There are not unique signatures per se, but they can be made with unique meta-data on each one.

I assume there might be a cost difference between manufacturing unique discs versus batch ones.

Although I only read yesterday that unique watermarking was possible on BD discs, previously I assumed it was like DVD mastering where a master disc is made and then injection moulded, reflective layer backed, etc. for multiple copies.

Edit: yes, I believe Sony could have a unique code per disc, but maybe Microsoft has a patent on using that for game authorisation or some nuanced niche use case.

@themightyant Microsoft have patents in this space. Plus unique signatures on each disc is part of the Blu-ray spec.

I think Microsoft did all this back at the launch of Xbox One and have sat on it since, the question for me is whether Sony have individually signed each PlayStation BD disc.

It's not the GPU and graphics settings — like ray tracing — that are going to make this 30fps. It's the simulation models vs the power of the CPUs.

i.e. How much compute can get done in 33.33333 milliseconds by the current-gen console CPUs.

Do you know which platform they're from? I'm interested to known what PlayStation 5 Pro support provides.

@LightBlueDot But if you want to immediately upgrade to 32GB then having the single 16GB stick is a bonus — assuming you can find a matching one!

Microsoft senior management have been saying they expect component prices — RAM and SSDs — to further significantly increase through rest of 2026 and 2027, some analysts saying 2028 as well.

It's not just games consoles that are going up in price, nor computers or their components, but even mobile phones and anything with RAM and storage requirements.

The next generation consoles are going to be particularly hard hit, as the credible rumours had them with 32GB RAM each; don't expect those to be cheap.

Microsoft are having problems getting enough RAM for their Xbox manufacture — even the current demand for Xbox Series — and also their Surface laptops.

AI data centres really are eating the global supply of RAM and SSD.

Apparently Valve are working with Nvidia on drivers for SteamOS.

That would be very interesting indeed.

Looks like Steam Frame has four models too:

• 256GB without charger
• 256GB with charger
• 1TB without charger
• 1TB with charger

If you're running tethered to your PC via USB-C then the cheapest option is the one to pick.

@themightyant There appears to be an overwhelming amount of evidence that Half-Lfe 3 is imminent; I've always assumed it's going to be a launch title for Steam Machines.

Similarly, I think they're going to release a stand-alone native ARM64 port of Half-Life Alyx for Steam Frame at launch.

But maybe if they break their duck with a 3 game, we may see more?!

Looking forward to Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight — looks like PS5 Pro is the place to play.

Although … have they confirmed a Professional version?

It's a lovely controller. Combined with Big Picture Mode, which is done by twice-clicking the Steam button, is very nice experience indeed.

Now, where is:
1. Steam Machine
2. Steam Frame
3. Half-Life 3

@Vyns Huzzah, it just arrived. I still prefer coloured XYAB buttons, but this is a very nice controller indeed.

It will be interesting to see if Valve takes any action to make this sort of accidental unencrypted release harder in future

For this to happen to two high profile releases demonstrates that Valve should put some checks in exactly as Will suggests.

User error is unavoidable and clearly extreme care needs to be taken in this process, but this is hair-trigger high-stakes risk that could be mitigated with some code.

@Vyns It shipped yesterday and the tracking number tells me that it's still with the courier (GLS) in the Netherlands — I guess because it's the weekend.

So I'm expecting it early next week.

@wsjudd Haha, yes Will. Thank you!

Got the 'shipped' with tracking number email at lunchtime. Exciting stuff indeed.

I'm a sucker for Valve hardware and have so far purchased everything they've produced. 🙃

Packaged items

Come on, come on, move to Picked up by carrier.

@themightyant not confirmed like Steam/Epic/etc. store support

This is the deafening silence, certainly Tom of MooresLawIsDead has put out a couple of shows about this very point.

@themightyant At the end of the day, does it really matter?

I think it does with the third-parties. If they're building XboxOS — game specific version of Win11 — and it can run on third-party hardware, then the next question is … can I download it an install it in place of Win11.

Or will there be options in Win11 to make it more like XboxOS, expanding further the Xbox Mode they've just pushed out.

I think that all makes it not a console.

I'm hearing that it's a Win11 box with fixed spec generic hardware and some XboxOS secret sauce.

Will games be optimised for this hardware or for the OS? I suspect the latter.

@Granadico It works as a regular Xbox controller outside of Steam.

This is great, just started playing Pragmata on PS5 Pro after finishing RE9. Lovely engine Capcom, and two fantastic games.

That Oblivion remains broken after a year does not bode well for the long-rumoured Fallout 3 Remaster.

My Steam Controller (2) has moved from Paid (which it has been the last three days) to Packed. Just waiting for courier pick up and then shipped (with a tracking code).

Wonder if it's this week or next?! Stated 3–5 days when I bought it.

Mrs StooMonster hates tech in the living room, plus gaming PC installed in my office with 21:9 OLED.

Might have to double-dip if it's great.

@NandoCalrissian Feels like Nvidia is the key missing part of support for SteamOS. Especially now they're got ARM64 version of SteamOS running — seen the videos of it running on Switch? — and there's the forthcoming Nvidia N1X handheld hardware.

Enjoyed this video, thanks much. Haven't bought Pragmata yet, but am absolutely going to do so on PS5 Pro as soon as a bit of backlog finished.

Although the PC Path-Tracing is calling … but want to play this on the sofa.

@themightyant Agree with you. Plus I’ve been thinking the same about Project Helix backwards compatibility, that it uses AI to solve things like fixed resolutions and frame rates from old days and uses an ML upscale plus a frame rate interpolater to make 60fps … or more.

Any news on whether Crimson Desert received the PSSR2 patch upon release?

Available this evening at 10pm (that's Thursday 19 March 2025), and I guess we'll see whether the PSSR2 was updated … as well as playing the game. Looking forward to it.

@stoper

I don't think they are lying to us. Nvidia is.

The conspiracy deepens!

When they should have sat down and analyzed the images carefully.

You think that DF are unprofessional and don't know what they're talking about?

@themightyant

Do you GENUINELY not see the AI filter / uncanny valley when you watch the faces in motion?

I see the uncanny valley effect, semi-realism causes that on all humans and is a well documented phenomenon.

It's the "AI filter" comment that I don't agree with. Perhaps if people's understanding of tech is SnapChat or TikTok filters (not how they work, just turning them on) then that's what they can articulate as their understanding.

I'm interested in hearing more about how this fits in the rendering pipeline — also this clearly doesn't work with path-tracing, which I think was mentioned in the video.

It appears to me to be either a) a low cost way of improving the lighting in games that don't have ray tracing, or b) optionality on games with ray-tracing.

Or have I got that wrong on b) I know it doesn't work with path-tracing does this work with ray-tracing … or is it only for games with rendering that has no RTX?

@themightyant The consoles may be running AMD, but this is exactly the kinds of technologies that Microsoft are talking about for Project Helix and Sony are same for PlayStation 6.

This is just the start of the next transformation to gaming tech—like sprites to 3D, software 3D to GPUs, etc.—it's not going away, and there's going to be a whole lot more of it.

@Dort

going to fly with folks who are clearly seeing a big change in aesthetics

This isn't going to magically appear in games without the developers putting it in the games.

Talking of things that deliver a drastic change on artwork, path-tracing doesn't magically appear in a game either.

The game developers put it in there.

What if the devs develop the game with this technology at front and centre … and so turning it off is therefore going against their vision of the game? i.e. Turning it off has the drastic change on the artwork? 😱

@stoper

Because it's clearly not just lighting.

Why do you think they're lying to you?

But they should have known this will be controversial and should not have rushed with a quick coverage from a hotel room.

Why not?