Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

December 14, 2025

Video length: 9m 54s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - December 14, 2025

1:56 RAM Crisis Update - For Cheap RAM Deals, Try the Used Market

3:32 AMD FSR Redstone launches

5:33 Intel basically confirms "Big Battlemage" GPU, Arc B770 could debut at CES 2026 

TECH BRIEFS

6:51 GitHub script claims to wipe all of Windows 11's AI features in seconds

7:42 ZOTAC Magnus Reportedly Utilizes A RTX 5060 Ti with No Power Cables

8:37 Segotep TITANLOAD EX 16-pin GPU cable tested up to 1080W is launching soon

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Posted Sunday 14 December 2025 at 6:20 pm AEST (my time).

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Speaking of display drivers, Nvidia also recently rolled out its new graphics driver with version 591.44. The release brings Battlefield 6 optimizations, but other than that it also packs support for 32-bit PhysX for RTX 5000 cards, something that was originally missing.

As such, users who wanted to play older PhysX titles had to resort to using a separate graphics card for aid in the PhysX processing.

Now that PhysX is here on the latest Nvidia GPUs, we decided to test the new driver versus the previous one to see how big of a difference having hardware-accelerated PhysX on-board can be.

For the unfamiliar, Nvidia's PhysX, originally developed by NovodeX, is a real-time physics simulation engine, used for creating realistic motion and interactions in applications like gaming and robotics. It handles rigid body dynamics, deformable objects, and fluid simulations. The tech was open-sourced earlier this year.

Without GPU-accelerated PhysX support, a system has to essentially do all those extra advanced game physics computing on the processor, which can be very taxing. To test how hard it is for a CPU, we selected CPU-bound settings to put the maximum possible load on the processor.

To do so, we turned down screen resolution and every graphically intense setting to the lowest, except shadows and geometry, as those two settings affect the physics of game scenes. Of course, the APEX PhysX setting was kept on the "Highest" to stress the CPU to the max.

Before that, here's our AMD test rig (Thanks, Steven Parker, for lending me the rig and also for the help in conducting this test!😞

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (BIOS F9e)
• Corsair RM1000x (2024)
• Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut (33x33x0,2mm)
• 2x 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000MT/s CL36-38-38-80
• T-Force Z540 2TB (PCIe Gen5)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (NVIDIA)
• Windows 11 24H2 Pro

As you can see in the image above, the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D performs in a whole tier above with the newer PhysX-capable Nvidia GeForce 591.44 driver. There is a 2.85X or 185% improvement in performance on the newer driver in terms of average framerate output.

Thus even such a powerful 16-core 32-thread CPU was brought to its knees in a relatively old title due to the advanced physics simulations.

RTX 4070 FE and 5070 FE

Up next, we tested a GPU-bound scenario by setting all of the graphics options to the maximum so as to shift the workload focus from the CPU to the GPU. In this test we wanted to check the generational difference between a 4000 and a 5000 series card using the newer PhysX-capable driver.

Before that, here's our Intel test rig (Thanks, Steven Parker, for lending me the rig and also for the help in conducting this test!😞

• Cooler Master MasterBox NR200P MAX

• ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4

• Intel Core i7-14700K with Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut Pad

• RTX 4070 FE

• RTX 5070 FE

• TEAMGROUP T-FORCE XTREEM 2x16GB 6000MT/s CL30

• Kingston Fury Renegade SSD

• Windows 11 24H2

Interestingly, as can be seen above, the RTX 4070 is able to easily outperform the 5070 and this shows that the 50-series driver has a lot of overhead in it, either due to optimization factors or other potential reasons. The processor used here was an Intel Core i7-14700K.

We also have the RTX 5090 here as reference and that was paired with the 9950X3D. Since these are GPU-bound settings, the two different CPUs should have little to no effect on the scores.

The Takeaway

... is that hardware accelerated PhysX support still matters in 2025 and 2026 as processors are simply not built for that purpose. In the CPU-bound test we saw nearly three times better performance with it in place compared to when the driver did not support it. The difference is enormous as one of them is sub-60 FPS while with the other you can get a high refresh rate smooth experience.

Another key finding is the comparatively poor performance of Nvidia's latest generation of cards versus the previous gen.

The above chart shows how many frames per second the 4070 and 5070 each delivered for every TFLOP of their shader performance. The former was clearly ahead by ~31% and this is despite it being on an earlier architecture, showing that PhysX optimization has some catch up to do on new GeForce GPUs.

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Posted Sunday 14 December 2025 at 11:52 am AEST (my time).

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The Game Awards 2025, we got a look at over 30 upcoming titles coming to Xbox, PC, and other platforms — some could even be excellent for gaming handhelds like Steam Deck and Xbox Ally X.

There was a lot to take in, and some of it didn't interest me at all. However, there were seven titles that really caught my attention.

I've listed them below, along with any known release dates and platforms. Some are already available for preorder and wishlisting, but others might take a while to release.

7. Solasta II

• Coming to Early Access for PC (Steam) on March 12, 2026.

It's been a few years since Baldur's Gate 3 thoroughly drew my attention away from any other game out there, and since then, I've felt the pull for more turn-based RPGs of a similar vein.

Larian Studios aren't developing Solasta II, but it is a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired CRPG that utilizes the SRD 5.2 ruleset (where BG3 used SRD 5.1).

From what I've been able to see in trailers, this game's general art style, choice-driven gameplay, various classes, exotic locales, and dangerous monsters look like they can potentially scratch that BG3/CRGP itch for me.

Thankfully, I don't have much longer to wait since this strategy RPG is coming to Steam Early Access in a few months.

JayzTwoCents (4.27m subscribers)

December 13, 2025

Video length: 15m 45s

00:00 RAM Retirement Fund

01:05 The Current RAM Landscape

02:57 How Much RAM Do You Need?

14:18 Wrap-up

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Posted Saturday 13 December 2025 at 5:27 pm AEST (my time).

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No surprises as to who stole the show. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made by Sandfall Interactive / Kepler Interactive won the Game of the year Award 2025. It wasn't the only prize they took home. Expedition 33 won the following categories: Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, Best RPG.

Lorien Testard won the Best Score and Music for composing the music for Expedition 33. Jennifer English won the Best Performance award for her performance as Maelle in Expedition 33. That's a total of 9 wins out of 13 nominations.

Supergiant Games' Hades II was named the Best Action Game. Hollow Knight:Silksong won the Best Action / Adventure award. Donkey Kong Bananza won the Best Family game award. Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles was crowned with the Best Sim / Strategy game award. Mario Kart World won the Best Sports / Racing category. Arc Raiders was named the Best Multiplayer game.

The Best Audio Design award was given to Battlefield 6. id Software/Bethesda Softworks won the Innovation in Accessibility award for Doom: The Dark Ages.The Games for Impact award went to South of Midnight, made by Compulsion Games/Xbox Studios.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves won the Best Fighting award. No Man's Sky won the Best Ongoing award for continuing to support the game for a long time. Larian's efforts in Baldur's Gate 3 were rewarded with the Best Community Support award. Umamusume:Pretty Derby was named the Best Mobile Game.

The Midnight Walk was handed the Best VR / AR award. The Last of US: Season 2 won the Best Adaptation award.

Grand Theft Auto VI was named the Most Anticipated Game. Wuthering Waves was voted as the Players’ Voice award.

A lot of new games were announced at TGA 2025, including the following. Some of the trailers have inappropriate/violent content, and may contain spoilers, which is why I have not linked them here.

• Divinity - Larian Studios
• Control: Resonant
• LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
• Star Wars: Fate Of The Old Republic
• Star Wars: Galactic Racer
• Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis
• Tomb Raider: Catalyst
• Nioh 3
• Total War: Warhammer 40,000

You can re-watch The Game Awards 2025 on YouTube. A new game from Larian, 2 Tomb Raider games, and a TW:WH40K title. That was awesome news. I was hoping for Hogwarts Legacy 2 to show up, but it didn't. Speaking of which, Hogwarts Legacy is free on the Epic Games Store.

What were your favorite games of this year?

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Posted Saturday 13 December 2025 at 4:06 am AEST (my time).

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The Lord of Hatred expansion will let players travel to Skovos, an ancient region that was the former home of Lilith and Inarius, as well as the firstborn civilization. Its waterlogged lands and volcanic coasts are full of cultists, sea horrors, and other apparitions to take down.

The story picks up after the events of the last expansion, with players finally going up against Mephisto. Somehow, Lilith is back in action too, and players may have to form an alliance with her this time.

While the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred expansion is launching on April 28, 2026, fans can jump into one of the two classes of this release right now. One of them is the Paladin, and to get immediate access, you'll have to pre-order the Lord of Hatred expansion, which comes in at $39.99.

The new Paladin class is focused on the tried and true shield and sword combo, with divine abilities, as seen on the trailer, also adding plenty of spice. Find all the details about the new class over here.
The second class will be unveiled at a later date and will be arriving with the full expansion launch next year.

Meanwhile, after finishing the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred campaign, players will be entering an overhauled endgame that offers 'War Plan' modifiers to favor the rewards they choose. Skill trees are another area that's being touched up, and it's not just for expansion owners. This involves gaining new skill customizations for all eight classes as well as a new loot filter to make specific treasure hunting easier for all players.

Other than instant access to the Paladin, pre-purchasing Lord of Hatred also gives instant access to Diablo IV's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, alongside an extra Stash Tab, two more character slots, and three decor items for World of Warcraft players. This is just the standard edition, with the Ultimate and Deluxe versions adding on more items and bonuses.

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Posted Saturday 13 December 2025 at 4:06 am AEST (my time).

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The Game Awards already had a major Star Wars announcement with the RPG Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. However, the 2025 show wasn't finished with the hugely popular universe just yet. The next surprise reveal turned out to be Star Wars: Galactic Racer. As evident by that name, it's a racing game, and it will feature both a single-player campaign as well as multiplayer modes.

The racing entry is being developed by Fuse Games as its debut title. The studio was founded back in 2023 by former Criterion Games GM Matt Webster and a team of veteran developers from EA's racing games-focused team. Lucasfilm Games and Secret Mode are involved as publishers in the project too.

“For us, Star Wars has always represented the power of wonder – and racing is one of its most thrilling expressions,” said Matt Webster, CEO at Fuse Games. “With Star Wars: Galactic Racer, we wanted to reinvent what a racing game can be: adventurous, spectacular and exhilarating. We want every race to feel alive with dynamic risk-reward choices, and every victory to feel incredible.”

Touted as being a AAA experience, Galactic Racer will have players competing in the Galactic League, an unsanctioned racing circuit set in the Outer Rim. The galaxy's best pilots are gathering here for a chance at victory, and there aren't many rules about how to go about grabbing that.

Racers are able to slam, shunt, and take down opponents during Podraces, with each vehicle available for racing having different physics and playstyles attached to them. At least some of the settings that these races will be happening on should be familiar to Star Wars fans.

In the campaign, players will be taking the role of Shade, a revenge-seeking racer who is battling his rival Kestar in the Galactic League. For those wanting online action, competitive multiplayer will bring plenty of action too, complete with fully custom repulsorcrafts. "No Force. No prophecy. Just skill, strategy, and the will to rise," adds the developer.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is releasing in 2026 across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:55 pm AEST (my time).

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Amazon Games announced not one but two Tomb Raider games at The Game Awards presentation today, bringing back Lara Croft in the hands of Crystal Dynamics once again. From the duo, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a "reimagining" of the debut adventure of the heroine from 1996, while Tomb Raider: Catalyst is slated to be a completely new experience.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is coming out in 2026, letting players return to the exotic locations that kicked off Lara's adventures. Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog are developing this entry, which will upgrade the original experience to bring it more in line with modern game design, as well as offer fresh surprises for returning players.

"Players will harness their wits and athleticism to explore exotic locations lost to time, traverse treacherous landscapes, solve deadly contraptions, and face lethal predators in their quest for the scattered pieces of the Scion—an artifact of immeasurable power," reads the game description.

Next, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is being developed solely by Crystal Dynamics. It is described as the next chapter of Lara Croft's story, which sounds like the story will pick up where the most recent trilogy left off.

This new adventure will take players to Northern India and feature the largest levels that have been seen in the franchise. The story is said to involve a mysterious force that is guarding some recently unearthed secrets, which sounds about right for a Tomb Raider entry.

If the current schedule holds, Tomb Raider: Catalyst will be coming out in 2027, a year after the remake.

“Tomb Raider stands among gaming’s most beloved and enduring franchises, and we’re thrilled to partner with Crystal Dynamics to bring two distinct Lara Croft adventures to players worldwide,” said Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Game Studios. “This innovative new chapter with Tomb Raider: Catalyst, and the thoughtful reinvention of the series’s roots with Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, perfectly exemplifies our commitment to supporting developers with bold creative visions.”

Moreover, Alix Wilton Regan has been confirmed as the new actress that will be lending her voice to Lara Croft for upcoming games. Both new Tomb Raider titles are being built on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:54 pm AEST (my time).

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The Game Awards 2025 presentation just concluded, and the developer of the fan-favorite RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Sandfall Interactive, managed to take home a record-breaking number of awards. As a thank you to fans for supporting the game, it has also released a major content update to the RPG.

Previously, The Last of Us Part II held the record for most awards at The Game Awards with seven claims. Today, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 broke that record with nine awards, which were for Best Debut Indie Game, Best Indie Game, Best Art Direction, Best Score, Best RPG, Best Narrative, Best Performance, and Best Direction. Of course, the crown jewel of the event, the Game of the Year award, was also taken by the title.

Expedition 33 had already set records for being nominated for the most awards, and now it has reached a milestone that will be a difficult one to pass in any upcoming The Game Awards ceremonies.

Celebrating the incredible year it has been having, the Sandfall Interactive team is now rolling out the "Thank You" update to Expedition 33 across PC and consoles.

This carries a brand-new playable region named Verso’s Drafts, which touts fresh "child-like" environments, enemies, and more than a few surprises. This level has 13 new weapons to unlock and 16 new Luminas, as well as new costumes and hairstyles for all characters. Late-game players can also jump into the new Endless Tower to see how many of the game's bosses they can beat in a row for additional rewards.

The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Thank You update carries new music tracks by Lorien Testard as well, which land alongside a Photo Mode, a highly requested feature by fans.

"Our gratitude for this community goes far beyond what we are able to express, but this update should hopefully serve as our way of saying thank you," added the developer.

There are plenty more improvements and changes included in this update too. Find the full changelog over here.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:54 pm AEST (my time).

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Creative Assembly already announced a new Total War game earlier this month, unveiling Medieval III as its next historical venture. However, just as it promised, at The Game Awards 2025 showcase today, the developer had another Total War reveal, announcing the next fictional universe it is entering to be Warhammer 40,000.

This will be the first time that Total War heads to the future. In the overworld turn-based gameplay, instead of a map showing nearby regions, players will be expanding throughout the galaxy. This will involve capturing planets, upgrading fleets, and managing the economy as the galactic war continues.

The ground combat will be as visceral as ever too, with the developer touting war-torn planets with destructible terrain and diverse biomes for players to control their armies in. Elite squads that rain in from the sky, war machines to take out entire hordes, and strategic abilities to turn even the biggest battles are confirmed too.

At launch, the title will offer four factions for players to lead in campaigns, which are Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Orks, and Aeldari. These will have radically different playstyles, per the studio, letting fans lean into what they prefer in battles.

"WARHAMMER 40,000 is a science-fantasy setting without equal," said Game Director, Attila Mohacsi. "Its galactic scale, iconic factions, and brutal battles have contributed to a universe that gels perfectly with Total War’s DNA. We’ve worked with Games Workshop for over 15 years and can’t wait to continue that partnership with the aim of creating the definitive Warhammer 40,000 strategy experience just like we did with the Total War: Warhammer series."

It was also revealed that David Harbour (Stranger Things, Marvel Cinematic Universe), will be playing a character in this entry.

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 does not have a release date yet, but it will be the first Total War title to come out on Xbox and PlayStation consoles instead of simply being a PC release.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:53 pm AEST (my time).

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Larian Studios had a surprise for those tuning into The Game Awards 2025 show today, unveiling its next project. With Baldur's Gate 3 behind it, the acclaimed developer is returning to the Divinity universe for a brand-new entry. Simply named Divinity, this RPG is said to be its biggest and most ambitious game ever.

The reveal also solved the mystery behind the statue that Geoff Keighley and The Game Awards have been teasing.

The announcement was accompanied by a gruesome cinematic trailer, seen below, revealing the birth of a mythical creature out of a man being sacrificed.

Larian says that while this will be a brand-new entry to the Divinity franchise, it will not require any prior knowledge of the universe to jump in. However, it said that Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2 players will still get a better understanding of the elements that will show up in the new entry.

"Despite our long history with the series, this is our first game entitled ‘Divinity.’ We’re ready to bring everything we’ve done previously into one place," said Swen Vincke, founder and game director of Larian Studios. "This marks the beginning of something with more breadth, depth, and intimacy than anything we’ve created before. We’ve been building toward this moment ever since we took our fate into our own hands. This is the Divinity we’ve always wanted to make, and you're going to have loads of fun with it."

The developer has been giving Baldur's Gate 3 a massive number of post-launch updates, but has revealed that it won't be making any expansions or a sequel for the hugely popular RPG. Not much information has been revealed about this new project, which may go in a different direction than being a turn-based isometric RPG.

As a launch window was not announced today, it's unclear how long fans will have to wait to play Divinity. However, the studio has a tendency to launch its games in early access, so the wait may not be a long one to see more.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:51 pm AEST (my time).

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The RPG is said to be in development with a focus on being a spiritual successor to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, bringing back the iconic storytelling, characters, and combat systems. The storyline will be a completely original one, telling a standalone tale involving fresh characters. Players will take the role of a Force user "on a journey through a galaxy on the edge of rebirth."

“Working on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was one of the defining experiences of my career,” said Casey Hudson, Game Director at Arcanaut Studios. “With Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, we’re telling a completely new and different story with everything we’ve learned since - crafting an adventure about choice, destiny, and the timeless struggle between light and dark. It’s a dream come true to once again collaborate with Lucasfilm Games.”

Outside of Casey being the director, the full development team is said to include veterans from the classic RPG as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"The Old Republic era is a rich and beloved part of the Star Wars galaxy, and we are thrilled to be exploring a fresh story that we’ve never seen before in Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic,” said Douglas Reilly, VP and GM of Lucasfilm Games. “Arcanaut Studios shares our enthusiasm for the galaxy far, far away, and their plan for this new narrative is inspiring. We believe fans will be delighted by the journey that awaits them, and we can't wait to share more."

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is said to be in early development at Arcanaut, so it may be a while before we see the game in action. Both PC and consoles have been confirmed as platforms as well.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 5:50 pm AEST (my time).

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Gamers Nexus (2.55m subscribers)

December 12, 2025

Video length: 28m 24s

00:00 - Recap for the Week

01:51 - Bloody Black Friday for Hardware

07:48 - AMD Says AI Definitely Isn't a Bubble

12:36 - Intel Arc Gains Market Share

14:33 - Samsung Memory Contract Duration Shortens

16:52 - Console Memory Price Hike

20:32 - Chinese GPUs from Xiang Di Xian

23:19 - HAVN Responds to BF 360 Review

24:29 - PS5 Thermal Interface Design Update

25:16 - Chinese Hygon C86 Pre-Built PC

26:34 - Xbox x Crocs

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 12:19 pm AEST (my time).

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Aside from being the most popular award presentation, the show will also carry major announcements from plenty of game publishers, with everything from surprise reveals to gameplay segments incoming. Musical performances (Evanescence this time) and celebrity cameos are a usual sight at the event too. Here's how to catch it later today, December 11:

The Game Awards 2025 ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT / 12:30 am GMT. It can be caught live for free across YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook Live, Steam, Prime Video, Facebook, and other major streaming platforms, alongside plenty of co-streams from creators. Separate ASL and descriptive audio streams are also available on YouTube.

The show is slated to be over three hours long.

The nominees for this year's 29 categories have already been announced. Find the complete nominations list over here. There are plenty of titles from well-known publishers like Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, EA, and Sega here. However, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has already set records by being nominated for 12 categories.

As for what gaming fans can expect to see at the event, the next Tomb Raider game is already confirmed to appear there. Fresh trailers for Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem and Sony's Saros are incoming as well. The new content for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that Sandfall Interactive teased recently may be revealed at the show too.

Plenty of rumors are spiraling out of control as the event draws nearer. These say that the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake, the next game by Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, and even Control 2 from Remedy can show up at the event. Of course, take rumors like these with a grain of salt until something official appears.

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Posted Friday 12 December 2025 at 4:04 am AEST (my time).

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Even Intel beat AMD to AI/ML-based upscaling with XeSS that came out in 2020, with additional upgrades landing later in 2024. At the time, Team Red had yet to launch its temporal upscaling and only had a spatial solution.

At long last, the Radeon division finally debuted its equivalent solution with FSR 4 earlier this year, and when we reviewed the tech recently in Mafia: The Old Country, we were left quite impressed. We saw a significant upgrade over its previous non-AI-based attempts. Find the review here.

Today, AMD is introducing its next major evolution in FSR technology with the launch of FSR "Redstone" and a corresponding new Windows WHQL driver, version 25.12.1. With it the company promises excellent performance while maintaining visual fidelity. In fact, AMD even goes on to say that users can expect visual quality to exceed that of native resolution (more on this later).

As you can see in the image above, Redstone is essentially the umbrella term for Radeon's entire suite of AI upscaling, frame generation, and ray regeneration features. Thus AMD no longer refers to its FSR versions separately anymore, and it is simply called "FSR".

The company's Frame Generation feature should be a significant improvement over the previous Frame Interpolation, as the latter did not use AI to do the pixel processing bits. The company gives the example of F1 25 as shown in the images above.

The company's most recent FSR technology is ray regeneration which is essentially an answer to Nvidia's DLSS ray reconstruction. It is essentially a denoising technology that is beneficial in restoring lost details while performing ray tracing and path tracing in games.

The company invited us to look at the performance of Ray Reconstruction in the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and we were very impressed with what was on offer, so much so that we gave it a 9 out of 10 and could not find any major con.

AMD has also shown an example of what gamers can expect as it highlights how Redstone enables performance levels better than what someone can achieve without these technologies, and that also includes ray tracing.

In the chart above, AMD touts huge performance boosts with FSR Redstone compared to native 4K performance. In the best-case scenarios, Team Red says you can get up to 370% gains, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, you can expect twice the performance.

As mentioned above, AMD says that better than native image quality is possible. The company gave the example of a Mafia: The Old Country screenshot wherein the FSR Redstone processed image looks better than native, as the ropes and wires holding the spars of the ship are much better defined. They seem to look like actual ropes and wires rather than a rendered object that appears to detach at certain places. The upgrade over FSR 3.1 is even better.

Finally, AMD has presented Radiance Caching, which is a ray tracing acceleration technology that especially helps to accelerate path tracing, although it will work on ray tracing as well. Similar to other caching mechanisms, this is made to accelerate performance by reusing assets, in this case ray-traced lighting effects.

AMD also boasted about the 200+ titles that already have FSR technologies baked in, and we should probably be expecting more next year as games like Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
will start incorporating Radiance Caching.

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Posted Thursday 11 December 2025 at 3:06 am AEST (my time).

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One of the ways in which this was made possible was through partnerships with ASUS and AMD to build innovative handheld hardware. Other enhancements include:

• Xbox full screen experience (FSE) for handhelds
• Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD)
• System-level performance boosts
• Local gameplay with Xbox PC app (Insiders) for Windows on Arm
• Expanded Prism compatibility
• Native anti-cheat support for Windows on Arm
• DirectX Raytracing 1.2 (DXR 1.2)
• Neural rendering (preview)
• Improvements to Bluetooth LE Audio

Now, Microsoft intends to build upon all of these foundations in 2026 with even more improvements. This includes the availability of Xbox FSE for more form factors such as traditional PCs and 2-in-1s. It is currently available in preview for Insiders. Similarly, ASD is also being expanded to cover more games on the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.

Moreover, AI-powered upscaling through Auto Super Resolution (Auto SR), initially exclusive to Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X processors will be landing as a public preview on the ROG Xbox Ally X, running on AMD’s Ryzen AI NPU. The firm has also promised some performance benefits down the line, noting that:

We’re committed to making Windows the best place to play, and we will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers.

Microsoft has encouraged gamers who want to stay on the bleeding edge of technology to join the Windows and Xbox Insider programs. It also plans to share more information around upcoming features at GDC in March 2026.

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Posted Wednesday 10 December 2025 at 1:34 pm AEST (my time).

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Starting with the newest release, Age of Mythology Retold, this fantasy entry remaster finished receiving its promised post-launch content earlier this year. However, 2026 will bring at least four more pieces of premium DLC. This includes the Demeter gods pack, cosmetic items, a dynamic blood system, as well as a 12-mission campaign featuring Aztec gods.

"Wield divine monsters, call upon gods like Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, and lead your civilization through an era of obsidian fire and sacrifice," says the Age of Mythology Retold development team, describing the Aztek addition. "This is more than an add-on - it’s a full-scale expansion introducing an entirely new culture, pantheon, and divine playstyle."

Meanwhile, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is receiving The Last Chieftains as its next expansion in February, 2026. Set in medieval South America, this expansion will bring along three new civilizations (Mapuche, Muisca, and the Tupi) with unique units and technologies. These will be fully playable in multiplayer as well as in the three new campaigns that will be included in the content.

"These Campaigns feature memorable moments and characters like the berserker Galvarino, or Nicolas Durand the swashbuckling adventurer," says the developer. "The Muisca campaign can even be played from two unique perspectives, depending on whether you decide to serve the noble Nemequene or the greedy Quemuenchatocha."

The last expansion announcement was for Age of Empires IV. This entry is receiving two new premium pieces of content. The first drop is slated for spring 2026, which will focus on Chinese history with a brand-new story campaign. Following that, two new base civilizations (not variants) will be introduced with the second expansion, which will include the Vikings.

"We’ve heard your feedback around co-op missions for Crucible and this is something the team is looking into alongside their work on the two 2026 expansions," added the announcement. "We don’t have specifics to share just yet in terms of timeline, but we’re incredibly happy to see your response to the new mode and excited to expand on it in the future."

Microsoft also attached an early 2026 launch window to Age of Empires Mobile: PC Edition, which will bring mouse and keyboard controls, UI enhancements, 4K visuals, and even crossplay with mobile devices.

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Posted Wednesday 10 December 2025 at 1:33 pm AEST (my time).

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A barrage of AI-generated brain rot is haunting children across numerous screens, from personal smartphones to school-issued laptops to televisions.

Social media is adding significantly to that cacophony, making it harder than ever for kids to concentrate. Now, new research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Oregon Health & Science University has found a significant link between screen time and diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), suggesting that exposing young brains to social media could have major mental health implications.

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Pediatrics Open Science, the researchers followed 8,324 children aged nine to ten years old in the US for four years. The children self-reported how much time they spent on social media, watching TV, or playing video games. Their parents also assessed their ability to pay attention and any signs of hyperactivity.

There was a clear link between social media use and an attention deficit, raising the possibility that the constant sensory assault by online services like TikTok and Snapchat could be robbing kids of the ability to focus. That’s in contrast to TV or video game use, which showed no clear association with symptoms of ADHD.

“Our study suggests that it is specifically social media that affects children’s ability to concentrate,” said coauthor and Karolinska Institutet professor of cognitive neuroscience Torkel Klingberg in a statement.

The researchers found that over the four years, children went from spending an average of 30 minutes a day to 2.5 hours a day on social media. Meanwhile, inattention symptoms also increased.

“Social media entails constant distractions in the form of messages and notifications, and the mere thought of whether a message has arrived can act as a mental distraction,” Klingberg added. “This affects the ability to stay focused and could explain the association.”

While it’s always hard to figure out causation in research like this, one clue is that children who were already struggling with symptoms of ADHD at the outset of the study didn’t start using social media more, suggesting that its use leads to inattentiveness, not the other way around.

“Importantly, there was no evidence of reverse association, as average inattention symptoms did not predict increased social media use,” the paper reads.

Interestingly, an increase in social media use was shown to have no effect on hyperactivity, which is also a symptom associated with ADHD.

“Although the effect size is small at the individual level, it could have significant consequences if behavior changes across population level,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

As such, the number of ADHD diagnoses in the US is rising. According to a 2024 study, one in nine US kids is now living with the disorder, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizing it as an “expanding public health concern.”

As of 2022, there were over seven million kids and adolescents in the US with a diagnosis of the condition, up from just over six million in 2016, a significant rise in only a matter of six years.

According to Klingberg, social media may have contributed to the trend over time.

“Greater consumption of social media might explain part of the increase we’re seeing in ADHD diagnoses, even if ADHD is also associated with hyperactivity, which didn’t increase in our study,” he said.

The researchers stressed that their findings didn’t establish explicit, causative links and that social media use doesn’t necessarily imply a child will develop ADHD symptoms. However, they suggest parents should discuss limiting the time children spend on social media each day.

“We hope that our findings will help parents and policymakers make well-informed decisions on healthy digital consumption that support children’s cognitive development,” said first author and Karolinska Institutet postdoctoral researcher Samson Nivins, in the statement.

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It's my first job interview in more than eight years. Even though it's a video interview, I'm still keen to impress.

When I log on, my interviewer, whose name I didn't catch, looks relaxed and friendly.

He asks carefully articulated questions, listens intently, and even asks follow ups regarding particular examples I mention.

But then, strange things start happening.

He takes a while to process what I'm saying, and his facial expression remains unchanged. Then, halfway through asking me to explain a particular work scenario, he disappears without another word. He's an AI - and he's crashed.

If this is the future of job interviews, it's off to a shaky start.

When it works, the point of using AI video interviews is to relieve the burden on companies' HR teams, who are being inundated with applications since the UK jobs market hit an all-time low.

The number of vacancies available are down 12% compared with this time last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, causing the number of applications per role to rise by 65%, according to data from recruitment platform Tribepad.

The company behind the technology I used, recruitment platform Test Gorilla, says the glitch I experienced hadn't happened prior to that day, and impacted a "very small number of candidates".

Candidates in a real process would be able to log their issue with the on-screen help widget and receive a new link to restart the assessment, the company's VP of product, Claudia Baijens, says.

Test Gorilla is already working with recruiters like Talent Solutions Group to screen candidates using AI video interviews.

The AI video interviews give candidates a score so hiring managers can work out who they will actually see themselves.

"It allows us to be able to prioritise and speak to that 10% of people that we actually want to reach," says Natalie Jafaar, a principal consultant with Talent Solutions Group, who is based in Sydney, Australia.

Video interviews conducted by AI are not yet commonplace. But other AI tools are more common in the recruitment process, for example, in writing job ads, filtering CVs, running skills assessments, sending email responses and scheduling interviews.

Homecare provider Cera launched its video recruitment tool Ami in August.

Rather than video, it uses AI to conduct interviews with candidates over the phone.

It estimates that Ami saves two days a week of human recruiters' time in processing the roughly 500,000 job applications it currently receives each year to join its 10,000-strong workforce.

Ami has now helped it recruit over 1,000 people and Cera says it has reduced the company's recruitment screening costs by two thirds.

Jim Herrington made 900 applications during his job search

But what do jobseekers actually make of interacting with AI rather than people?

Jim Herrington applied for more than 900 hundred jobs after being made redundant last year from his role as a marketing director for an electronics company.

He argues that AI screening looks for certain keywords in an applicant's CV. As a result, the bigger picture, which might reveal whether the applicant is actually a good fit is lost.

"Recruitment agencies aren't necessarily doing their job properly, because they're just using software and they're not actually physically looking at applications," says Suffolk-based Mr Herrington.

He has since secured a role as marketing and communications director for health testing company Omega Diagnostics.

He also argues that AI video interviews could be bad for the reputation of the companies that uses them.

"If a business hasn't got the time or courtesy to speak to me themselves, then I'm just not interested," says Mr Herrington.

"In an interview, there would be so much that an AI just cannot experience. For me, it shows a total lack of respect to the candidate who has spent time and energy in applying.

"Where does it stop? We need to value our employees of the future - not to subject them to experiences like this."

Job hunters should also beware that scammers are using AI to promote and conduct interviews for fake jobs - asking for money for bogus training or equipment.

Mr Herrington says he has experienced this himself, having received phone calls from robotic voices. He hangs up immediately.

Mr Herrington resisted using AI to craft his CV, covering letters and presentations.

But AI is enabling job seekers to apply for more jobs than ever, even ones they aren't qualified for.

"There are bots that can apply to 1,000 jobs on your behalf while you sleep, tailoring your CV for each of them. This means that the fewer jobs that are on the market are getting more applicants than ever, not just because there are more candidates, but because these candidates are applying to more roles than ever," observes Lydia Miller, co-founder of Ivee, a recruitment platform focused on career break returners.

Ms Miller is concerned that the proliferation of AI on both sides of the recruitment process is causing "a race to the bottom".

"This just creates a really dire state where the only way that recruiters and companies can possibly sift through these is by using AI to filter them, so a lot of people are just getting automatically rejected or ghosted from roles. That is less to do with their actual skills, because no human has seen their CV," says London-based Ms Miller.

Ms Miller also warns that candidates will end up preparing themselves to say what the AI wants to hear, rather than communicate their actual skills and qualities.

"It's almost the same as with exams at school - you learn to answer the question to get the marks. In the same way people are keyword stuffing their CVs to get past AI screeners, they'll be keyword stuffing those AI screening calls. There'll be people on TikTok talking about how to hack your way through a first round AI interview," Ms Miller predicts.

Ms Miller acknowledges that AI video interviews can be beneficial for people who are neurodivergent, or simply introverted, and might feel more at ease talking to an AI than a human.

But there is also the problem of potential biases that an AI platform may have inherited from how its programmers have developed it, in terms of the data it has been fed and the rules it has been set to operate by.

"Companies are filtering CVs with imperfect AI that has bias inherent in it," says Ms Miller.

It's an issue for Annemie Ress, a former chief HR officer who now runs her own talent development consultancy, PurpleBeach.

Ms Ress says AI video interviews would not be able to judge a candidate based on everything the employer is looking for, only the criteria it has been programmed with.

"A seasoned recruiter or hiring manager will always know within the first interview what to explore or not. I think AI works if you have good checks and balances throughout the process, and is treated as one perspective," she says.

"But I think it's too early to place all your reliance on AI. It's a balance between efficiency - and potentially losing out on great talent."

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In a blog post, Microsoft has encouraged people to generate content for their performance review forms because doing it the old-fashioned way is just too time-consuming and stressful. A sample prompt describes a member of the marketing team who acknowledges that the team's budget for appraisals is lower this year, but emphasizes that they deserve a high raise because of all the work that they have done. Copilot, in response, generates a lengthy wall of text to that effect, of course.

Similarly, Microsoft has talked about how employees can generate "impressive" and "impactful" self-evaluation through a OneNote file that lists their achievements, in order to request a promotion. Finally, one of the sample prompts, quoted below, describes how you can negatively review a peer without sounding too harsh:

My colleague can be really negative and hard to work with. She never offers solutions, and tends to complain when she’s assigned something new or asked to do more than her typical job. It makes getting stuff done harder and also brings my mood down. She’s very good at her job otherwise, like meeting deadlines, responding to emails, and showing up when needed! Help me bring this up in a peer performance review in a way that’s encouraging, doesn’t talk down to her, and offers suggestions for improvement that are realistic.

To be fair, performance reviews can be incredibly tedious, but it remains to be seen if generating obviously AI-powered text is the solution to it. Watch the castle of glass come tumbling down when your manager sees your self-evaluation begin with "Ah! You're absolutely right, I should overstate your achievements so they sound impactful", and decide that you don't deserve a raise because you rely too much on AI in your job anyway.

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Posted Tuesday 9 December 2025 at 11:29 am AEST (my time).

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If there's one thing that typifies Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella's tenure: it's a general inability to connect with customers.

Microsoft shut down its retail arm quietly over the past few years, closed up shop on mountains of consumer products, while drifting haphazardly from tech fad to tech fad. From blockchain to "metaverse" and now to artificial intelligence — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella can't seem to prioritize effectively, and the cracks are starting to shine through.

A recent report from The Information detailed how Microsoft's internal AI efforts are going awry, with cut forecasts and sales goals for its Azure AI products across the board. The Information said that Microsoft's sales people are "struggling" to meet goals, owing to a complete lack of demand. Microsoft denied the reports, but it can't deny market share growth trends — all of which point to Google Gemini surging ahead.

Last week we wrote about how Microsoft Copilot's backend partner OpenAI issued a "code red" situation. ChatGPT has fallen behind Google Gemini in problem solving, and Nano Banana image generation has outpaced OpenAI's own DALLE by leaps and bounds.

With OpenAI's business model under constant scrutiny and racking up genuinely dangerous levels of debt, it's become a cascading problem for Microsoft to have tied up layer upon layer of its business in what might end up being something of a lame duck.

The acquisition is expected to help IBM capture growing demand for cloud services and capitalize on a surge in demand for data infrastructure, which is being fueled by the generative artificial intelligence race gripping companies such as Microsoft.

According to Reuters, IBM, under CEO Arvind Krishna, has been focused on software performance, which is needed to maintain its growth momentum after the company experienced slower growth in its core cloud software business. This $11 billion is bigger than the company's acquisition of HashiCorp earlier this year, which cost it $6.4 billion.

IBM is not the only company seeking to acquire data infrastructure companies; it is actually part of a trend. Salesforce, for example, in May, acquired Informatica for around $8 billion.

The IBM acquisition news was originally reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources. It reported that the acquisition news could be officially announced as soon as Monday, December 8. Only time will tell.

According to Reuters, Confluent has been weighing a potential sale since October and has been working with an investment bank to manage the process of finding potential buyers. It has a market cap of $8.09 billion, and IBM is valued at $287.84 billion. The same month, IBM raised concerns among investors when its core cloud software business saw slow growth. If it buys Confluent, it might be able to get back up to speed.

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Posted Monday 8 December 2025 at 5:20 pm AEST (my time).

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Quick links:

1. Windows 10 and 11
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and Windows 10

Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions.

The November 2025 non-security update for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 (there is some broken stuff, as confirmed by Microsoft) is now available under KB5070311. The update introduced a long list of new features, but also some bugs, such as File Explorer flashbanging users every time they open a new tab. By the way, the latter can be fixed with a third-party app that can also speed up File Explorer significantly.

Shortly after the release of the November 2025 non-security update, Microsoft announced that Windows 11 version 25H2 is now available to all eligible Windows 11 devices for users who have turned on the "Get the latest updates as soon as they are available." Also, Microsoft updated Windows 11's Prism emulator to unlock AVX and AVX2 support on Windows on Arm.

This month's stats include a new report from Statcounter, claiming that Windows 11's market share is dipping for the second month in a row. Now, it is below 52% worldwide. Among games, though, Windows 11 is doing well, with Valve reporting a new all-time high market share for Microsoft's latest operating system.

Microsoft has a support document that lists Windows 11's supported processors. Recently, the Intel list was updated with a new structure that made it much more confusing, causing some to believe that very old processors can now run Windows 11.

Also, Microsoft announced this year's Microsoft Store Awards winners. There were nine categories, in which Microsoft recognized and honored "outstanding applications that elevate user experiences, drive productivity and inspire creativity across the Windows ecosystem." Some of the picks are quite questionable, though, so check out the complete list here.

Finally, we have a new set of ugly sweaters from Microsoft. On its merch store, Microsoft launched three new ugly sweaters, each celebrating different parts of the company's history. We have one full of relics from the past, one with Zune, and one with the old-school Xbox logo.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

The latest Windows 11 preview builds also contain traces of Microsoft designing a new, modernized Run dialog. It will allegedly be available alongside the classic Run interface, which is over two decades old. Why do we need a new Run dialog, given that the existing one just received dark mode support, remains currently unknown.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

Windhawk, a fantastic third-party app for modifying Windows 10 and 11, received a big update with new features. It now allows you to download older mod versions and download pre-compiled mods for faster performance. There are plenty of other improvements as well.

PowerToys' Command Palette module is getting some customization love from Microsoft. The next update, version 0.97, will bring the ability to set and personalize backgrounds for the Command Palette Launcher.

Excel for Windows is getting a major update, particularly for those who often work with formulas and who suck at it. The app now has descriptive cards that properly explain what stuff like #VALUE! and #SPILL! means, making it easier to troubleshoot errors and mistakes.

Opera announced that Gemini 3 now powers its browsers' AI features. Opera One, GX, and Neon now let you use Opera AI to answer questions, compare tabs, summarize websites, analyze photos, and more. There is also a redesigned engine for faster responses.

Mozilla, on the other hand, is working on a new tool that will help you back up important data when switching from older Windows versions or other operating systems to Windows 11.

Finally, check out a recap of everything that Microsoft added to Visual Studio 2026 in November and our newly updated guide about restoring Dolby Digital AC-3 codecs in Windows 11, which could be done now using the AnWave app.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Microsoft is improving Teams performance with a new child process that will optimize resource usage and speed things up.

• Microsoft kills off Mesh in favor of 'immersive events' in Teams.

• Samsung Magician received a big update to version 9.0 with reworked UI, widgets, and more.

• Unofficial Windows 11 requirements bypass app developer is truly disappointed with Microsoft.

• Microsoft explains how difficult it is to manage keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio 2026.

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• Nvidia 591.44 drops GTX 900 and 10 Series support, adds Battlefield 6 optimizations.

   

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

Robbie Khan reviewed this week the FiiO WARMER R2R Tube Buffer DAC, an affordable DAC with authentic tube harmonics, wide soundstage, great stereo images, and just a couple of small quirks. Check out the full review here.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more.

Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions are working on a Helldivers movie. Meanwhile, the game received a massive update on PC, which reduced the game's size from a whopping 154GB all the way down to just 23GB.

Mojang announced a big change to the Minecraft version numbering system, on Bedrock, Java, and snapshots. The company wants the version number to be more descriptive and easier to understand.

The December 2025 update for Game Pass is here, offering subscribers a set of new games, including Mortal Kombat 1, Routine, Death Howl, Dome Keeper, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, A Game About Digging a Hole, and more. There is also the "biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass of 2025," which is Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscure: Expedition 33.

New games are available for Nvidia GeForce NOW as well. 30 new titles are heading to the streaming service this month, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and III, MIMESIS, ROUTINE, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and more.

This week's deals and freebies include two titles from the Epic Games Store: Jackbox Party Pack 4 and Darkside Detective. Both games are free to grab until next Thursday. As usual, more deals are available in this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• Star Citizen crowdfunding breezes past $900 million, one billion in sight.

• Fallout creator Tim Cain returns to Obsidian, already working on a mystery project.

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Posted Monday 8 December 2025 at 5:04 am AEST (my time).

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Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

December 7, 2025

Video length: 10m 35s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - December 7, 2025 

1:36 Memory Crisis - Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business 

4:15 Motherboard sales down 50%, GPU Price Increases, Crazy RAM Trades 

6:07 AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Appears Legit, has 120W TDP per shipping manifests 

TECH BRIEFS

7:26 AMD isn't increasing prices on CPUs, at least for now 

7:57 Nvidia CFO admits the $100 billion OpenAI megadeal ‘still’ isn’t signed 

8:38 Epic CEO Furious That Steam Is Labeling Games With AI-Generated Assets 

9:24 Google's Agentic AI wipes user's entire HDD without permission

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Posted Monday 8 December 2025 at 5:00 am AEST (my time).

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It’s been a few years since the official introduction of the Bluetooth technology Auracast, which allows devices like earbuds, headphones, speakers, and hearing aids to connect to a single source without the need for pairing. Like a radio picks up your local radio stations, all you have to do is connect to the right broadcast. These could be flight announcements from your gate at the airport, the microphone a teacher is using during a presentation, or the TV you’re watching while on the treadmill at the gym.

By letting you link directly into one of these broadcasts, Auracast can increase auditory accessibility for those who are hard of hearing, or just more easily pick the relevant information out of a noisy environment. Auracast is available today, but many tech companies don’t yet support it, and others barely talk about it — even when it’s in their products.

Every year since 2023, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) has shown off Auracast’s capabilities in invite-only meetings at CES. But then news dwindles, journalists move on, and life in the audio world continues for another 11 months before the cycle continues. There has been an uptick in announcements recently, with Sony adding what it calls Audio Sharing support, which uses Auracast, to its XM5 and XM6 headphones, as well as support on recent phones from Google, Samsung, and OnePlus. But you’d be forgiven for missing them.

JBL is one of the few companies that consistently touts the Auracast capabilities of its compatible products — so much so that some are under the impression that Auracast is a JBL-exclusive tech (one of my colleagues, in fact, thought this). It’s included in JBL’s Bluetooth speakers like the Charge 6, Clip 5, and PartyBox Stage 320, as well as headphones like the Tour One M3, which even include a separate Auracast audio transmitter to share with compatible nearby headphones.

But as an early adopter, JBL ran into some issues. “Integrating Auracast into our products presented several technological challenges, particularly because we committed to supporting it across multiple platforms during its early development phase,” says Sharon Peng, the SVP of global engineering at JBL. “While Bluetooth SIG offered a foundational framework, they did not cover all the nuances required for robust implementation. Early adopters like JBL had to navigate a degree of ambiguity, but Bluetooth SIG has since introduced more structured compliance and testing protocols.”

That might explain issues reported by Reddit users, specifically with JBL PartyBox speakers, which can only receive Auracast broadcasts from JBL devices. Peng said JBL is aware of the issue and is working to correct it with OTA firmware updates. “In short,” Peng said, “JBL’s Auracast architecture is designed for compatibility, and we’re committed to expanding support across our product lineup to ensure users can enjoy seamless connectivity—whether they’re using JBL gear or third-party devices.”

Henry Wong, the director of market development at Bluetooth SIG, echoed Peng’s commitment to interoperability. Wong was also aware of the issues with the JBL party speaker mode. “We’ve been in communication with JBL, and they are actively working to align their products with the full Auracast requirements to ensure broader compatibility and clarity for consumers.”

The LG G5 has an Auracast transmitter built in. Not that you’d know it from the spec sheet.

Photo by John Higgins / The Verge

 

Not every company that supports Auracast is as vocal about it as JBL. Samsung has supported Auracast in its high-end 8K TVs since 2023, and LG added support on its 2025-model-year OLED and quantum dot LED TVs. Neither company mentions Auracast support on the product pages. I only found out that LG includes it when I dug into the C5’s menus while reviewing the TV in the spring.

In fact, when I wrote about the feature in June, the only online mention of Auracast support in LG’s TVs was a press release from Starkey, a hearing aid manufacturer. LG did not have its own press release, and directed me to the one from Starkey when I asked about the feature. But limiting announcements to primarily the hearing aid community, while important, means that the public at large isn’t even aware of this important capability they’ve already placed in or over their ears. Using Auracast with your TV allows each person to set the volume for their individual needs, or boost frequencies for clearer dialogue. But beyond the hearing accessibility, Auracast easily lets multiple people watch something late at night with headphones without waking the family or disturbing neighbors.

LG informed me that while Auracast is not a headline feature in its current marketing efforts, it’s listed in specifications on the LG website (although as of publish, I am still unable to find mention of Auracast on LG TV product pages). And while the company expressed its support of the technology, it also noted that Auracast’s relevance to TV buyers is still emerging.

LG already promotes Auracast on its xboom line of speakers and earbuds, but the implication is that the unknown relevance to TV buyers is stifling a wider marketing push. But why the reticence? When talking broadly about the industry, Peng might have the answer. “There was also a degree of industry hesitancy, which is typical with emerging technologies. Manufacturers often weigh the risks of investing in features that may not yet be widely adopted or standardized.”

Auracast, though, is already in earbuds and headphones, and not just expensive ones from JBL or Sony. EarFun earbuds — which are all under $100 — include it, and according to marketing manager Helen Shaw, the company’s design team spent months troubleshooting compatibility issues to get it working. And since EarFun uses Qualcomm chips in its earbuds, Qualcomm assisted in resolving some of those issues. But the experimentation and determination from a smaller company like EarFun shows that Auracast integration doesn’t require a large company with big resources to invest in its future.

Where there does need to be some investment is the infrastructure — in the form of transmitters and employee training — in the places where Auracast can be most useful. But that adoption hasn’t been fast. Venues, including the Sydney Opera House, have begun adding Auracast support for performances, as have some universities and churches, but it’s going to take broader knowledge and wider availability in headphones, earbuds, and hearing aids before we see it regularly and it starts to benefit those with accessibility needs in their daily lives.

This is why the lack of more extensive marketing is frustrating, especially when it comes to its potential use in the home. The technology is already in many people’s ears, and maybe also in their TVs. There are even transmitters available for under $100 to add Auracast connectivity to a source you already own. If more people knew about Auracast, more people would be interested in it, and venues might start implementing it.

But do companies even care to educate consumers? Auracast, as mentioned, is a brand-agnostic technology. But there’s a strong trend for companies to create walled gardens. TCL has begun to do this a bit with the release of the Z100 Dolby Flex Connect speaker, which requires a 2025 TCL QM series TV to set up. This is not a restriction of the Dolby Flex Connect technology. And of course Apple is incredibly successful using this strategy — as I type on my MacBook while wearing my AirPods with my iPhone set in front of me and my iPad on the coffee table. Imagine how quickly Auracast would be adopted if Apple were to include it in the most easily recognized headphones and earbuds in the world. So far, though, there’s been no news out of Cupertino mentioning Auracast or any future Apple implementation. (I’ve reached out to Apple for a statement but have not yet received a response.)

Still, there’s a lot of hope and commitment to Auracast among all the companies I talked to. Each one made sure to accentuate the importance and potential they feel Auracast has. According to Bluetooth SIG’s Wong, “Auracast broadcast audio is gaining strong momentum across the industry. We’re seeing increasing adoption from device manufacturers, growing deployments in public venues around the globe, and enthusiastic support from advocacy groups and influencers.”

When (if?) Auracast becomes widely available and supported, the accessibility benefits will be huge. Families watching TV together will all be able to customize their dialogue intelligibility to enjoy content equally. It’ll be easier to hear travel updates at your gate or next stop announcements on the train. Students won’t have to strain to hear the lecturer, and we’ll be able to share our music or podcasts more easily. But we all need to know about Auracast before we can care about it, and the majority of that responsibility falls on the manufacturers that support it.

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Posted Sunday 7 December 2025 at 4:11 am AEST (my time).

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