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‘It’s Moving Slower Than We Want.’ Qualcomm’s Still Trying to Figure Out PC Gaming

by admin September 25, 2025

PC gaming has become Qualcomm’s white whale. The company wouldn’t put it in those terms, but it’s clear the company wants users to know its new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chip will be gaming capable. It’s far from the ideal, and Qualcomm seems to know it. It wants to show off the new chip’s GPU abilities, but for one of the most common uses of graphics processing, Qualcomm will still be behind everyone else.

The looming elephant in the room is the chip microarchitecture Qualcomm is beholden to. Whereas Intel and AMD use x86, Snapdragon is based on ARM. Whatever PC you buy with a Snapdragon X2 chip will run into game compatibility issues. While Qualcomm claims it has 1,400 games optimized for Snapdragon, the actual list of modern AAA titles is relatively small. During its Snapdragon Summit keynote in Hawaii (full disclosure: travel and lodging were paid by Qualcomm, and Gizmodo did not guarantee any coverage as a condition of accepting the trip), the chipmaker showed off a list of games compatible with the platform. This included a few relatively recent games, such as Baldur’s Gate III and Hogwarts Legacy, plus a heap of 10-year-old games and remasters. You won’t port your entire Steam library to these new PCs whenever they come along. If you’re feeling a bit of déjà vu, that’s because Apple’s been suffering from the same incompatibility issues with its ARM-based M-series chips. If you’re being compared to Apple in terms of gaming, you’re already in a rough spot.

A great GPU that can’t play all your games

Who wants to play Raid Shadow Legends on PC? © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

Qualcomm’s chief of mobile and compute, Alex Katouzian, said in a Q&A, “[Gaming on PC] is moving slower than we want.” The 20-year Qualcomm veteran reiterated the anti-cheat compatibility with the original Snapdragon X series, which essentially locked out many of the most popular multiplayer games from its PCs.

“You have to chisel away at that until the game developer or the engine developer who actually works with us on mobile realizes we have the same capabilities coming through on PC,” he said.

Back with the first-gen Snapdragon X launch, Qualcomm made sure to tell buyers these devices were not built for gaming. The messaging has changed. Now they’re good for “casual gaming.” The new top-end Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme PC chip boasts enhanced CPU cores and an upgraded GPU, promising to beat the competition. Qualcomm claims the GPU can top out at higher performance, while drawing less power than either AMD or Intel’s high-end laptop chips.

Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm’s senior vice president and general manager of compute and gaming, told media that new devices running Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme could hit around 60 fps in some compatible games, whereas the Snapdragon X could only get 30 fps. And still, “We’re very cautious about how we position these devices in the market; they are not gaming platforms.”

Qualcomm can cajole and entice developers to port their games to ARM. It managed to convince Epic Games to enable compatibility with the game’s anti-cheat. The only other option is with emulation or a full compatibility layer. Currently, Windows on ARM depends on Microsoft’s Prism emulator, which simulates the x86 hardware as software. This leads to performance hiccups that make playing unsupported games less than ideal. Katouzian reiterated it was sticking with Prism for the sake of emulation. However, multiple rumors suggest Valve is porting games to ARM for the sake of a supposed standalone VR headset. Qualcomm could ride on Valve’s coattails and make a handy sum off the maker of Steam. If they’re considering it, Qualcomm isn’t yet saying so.

We still have to see what next-gen chips Intel and AMD carve out for tomorrow’s laptops. Qualcomm has promised that by “early next year” we’ll have the opportunity to test devices with the Snapdragon X2 Elite. Which is to say, by CES 2026 we’ll probably have a slew of new Intel, Qualcomm—and perhaps AMD—devices to compare each other to. The other two major PC chipmakers will still try to push battery life and power efficiency just like they did last year, just like Qualcomm is doing now.

Qualcomm has an odd place in gaming

Qualcomm spent a little too much time in its keynote talking about how its new PC chip isn’t meant for gaming, as Qualcomm implied. © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

This week, I sat down with Durga Malladi, Qualcomm’s general manager of technology and edge. After a long conversation about the advent of 6G and on-device AI, he told me the company was working directly with a few gaming hardware makers on future projects. No, of course he wasn’t willing to say with whom. “It’s early days,” he said.

Qualcomm’s chips are some of the most popular for gaming. That’s not a controversial statement. Mobile gaming eclipses both console and PC gaming combined. Qualcomm chips are found in some of the most popular Android phones, including Samsung Galaxy devices. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 should be better for gaming than the company’s previous chip and potentially better than the A19 Pro found in the iPhone 17 Pro.

There’s another end to Qualcomm gaming endeavors that the chipmaker rarely acknowledges publicly. Its chips are found in some of the more popular retro emulation devices around. At Snapdragon Summit, the company laid out several devices from companies like OneXPlayer, Ayaneo, and Retroid, all running Snapdragon chips. These are devices I have yet to handle myself, including the OneXSugar transforming dual-screen handheld, the Game Boy-like Retroid Pocket Classic, and the Ayaneo Pocket DS meant to recreate the feel of the Nintendo DS. The handhelds can run plenty of Android games, but their real benefit is with retro emulators—software recreations of older hardware. Qualcomm doesn’t want to stick its toes in the piranha-infested waters of illegal ROM downloads, so it will simply let the handhelds speak for themselves.

Qualcomm’s narrow focus of working with its tech giant partners, Google and Microsoft, has left the company with tunnel vision. Its work on Android has cemented ARM for mobile gaming, but players are looking for something different than yet another showcase of Honkai: Star Rail or Fortnite.

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September 25, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Skyrim wizard makes it possible to fix mod conflicts and patch issues by just moving stuff around in the game

by admin September 14, 2025

Skyrim modders have yet again managed to pull off something remarkable. You know how creating patches to ensure two mods work together smoothly’s long been something that requires firing up the likes of the creation kit or xEdit? Well, thanks to a new mod dubbed the in-game patcher, it’s possible to resolve issues like that simply by wandering up to the location as the Dragonborn and editing the very make-up of the world.

See a rock clipping through a house because you’ve downloaded a couple of works that give the same bit of Whiterun a makeover? Just mosey over, grab the misbehaving mineral, and either move it elsewhere or delete it. You’ll have make sure you’ve not messed up anything else in the process before you save your changes, but assuming all the NPCs still have their own heads, you’ve got your own patch.

The modder behind this in-game patcher is RavenKZP, whose previous projects include some equally advanced stuff. Adding seasons to the new areas added to the RPG by the likes of Beyond Skyrim: Bruma and a mechanic that makes food go mouldy if you keep it in your pockets too long. They’ve also made a quest involving Morrowind’s Uncle Sweetshare, which earns them a million extra points in my book.

Anyway, enough of me curiously nerding out. This in-game patcher, originally spotted by TheGamer, is a plugin for Skyrim: Special edition’s script extender. Once it’s installed, you enter and exit a patching mode by opening and closing the game’s console, where you typically enter the likes of spawn commands.

Once open, you select objects as you usually would in the console, and can move, rotate, scale, or remove them as you see fit. Markers, such as spawn points and those which control the likes of idles, furniture interactions, and which way water flows can also be manipulated in the same fashion. You can also add keywords to items if you’re so inclined. There are a bunch of quick YouTube tutorials under the mod page’s video tab to help you get started.

Watch on YouTube

RavenKZP wrote that their creation can also be used simply to rejig the world clutter to your liking or do a bit of redecorating of houses, cities and the like, which’ll probably be what I try first if I give it a whirl. Once you’ve made your tweaks, they can be saved as “BOS/KID patches so they persist across game sessions” and shared with others in ini file form. The modder’s also got plans to keep expanding what their work can do going forwards, including adding the ability to edit multiple objects at once.

As you might imagine given what it pulls off, the in-game patcher does come with a pretty chunky list of requirements – the Skyrim script extender, Address Library for SKSE Plugins, Object Manipulation Overhaul, SKSE Menu Framework, SkyPrompt, Base Object Swapper, Keyword Item Distributor, and Debug Menu. Jaxonz Positioner Converter Remastered and More Informative Console are optional extras.

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September 14, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Moving Higher as Fed Likely to Focus on Growth, Not Inflation

by admin September 11, 2025

Markets are ignoring a hotter-than-expected inflation report and instead turning their attention to the latest signs that the U.S. labor market is faltering — a shift in focus that points to growing concern about a deeper economic slowdown.

Consumer prices rose a bit more than expected August, according to CPI data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both the headline rate of 2.9% and the core rate of 3.1% remain solidly higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Normally, that would suggest the U.S. central bank should hold off on interest rate cuts.

But investors barely flinched at the data and instead focused what typically is the lesser-followed weekly initial jobless claims from the Department of Labor. That data showed claims soaring to 263,000 last week — the highest in nearly four years and up from 236,000 the previous week and 235,000 forecast. That focus was reflected in bond yields, with the 10-year Treasury yield sliding five basis points to below 4% for the first time since the April tariff panic tanked global equity markets.

Crypto markets initially dipped on the faster than expected inflation data, but quickly rebounded as the employment data took center stage. Bitcoin BTC$114,512.43 and ether (ETH) are only modestly higher, but the bigger action is in altcoins, suggesting the sort of animal spirits one might associated with monetary policy about to get a lot easier. Solana SOL$227.34 has risen 11% week-over-week to its highest level since January and dogecoin DOGE$0.2496 17% on a weekly basis. XRP XRP$3.0120 is ahead 6.6% over the last week and back above $3.

“Evidence of a slowdown in the U.S. is now appearing in the hard data; it’s no longer just in the sentiment surveys,” said Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch.

As for the real economy, today’s numbers offer a troubling glimpse into something the U.S. central bank has been working hard to avoid: stagflation. This economic condition, defined by the simultaneous occurrence of high inflation and stagnant growth, is rare and difficult to fix. For policymakers, it’s a catch-22.

Cutting interest rates to stimulate growth risks inflaming inflation. But failure to ease monetary policy while the employment situation deteriorates isn’t a much better alternative.

For now, traders are betting that the Fed will lean toward protecting growth over stamping out inflation, with odds pointing to a rate cut next week as a near certainty. Today’s data, however, suggests that the balance is becoming harder to manage and the path ahead may be more complicated than the market is pricing in.

“It’s going to be a rough few months ahead as the tariffs impacts work their way through the economy,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Americans will experience higher prices and (likely) more layoffs.”

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September 11, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Scientists Stunned as Tiny Algae Keep Moving Inside Arctic Ice

by admin September 10, 2025

Scientists know that microbial life can survive under some extreme conditions—including, hopefully, harsh Martian weather. But new research suggests that one particular microbe, an algal species found in Arctic ice, isn’t as immobile as it was previously believed. They’re surprisingly active, gliding across—and even within—their frigid stomping grounds.

In a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published September 9, researchers explained that ice diatoms—single-celled algae with glassy outer walls—actively dance around in the ice. This feisty activity challenges assumptions that microbes living in extreme environments, or extremophiles, are barely getting by. If anything, these algae evolved to thrive despite the extreme conditions. The remarkable mobility of these microbes also hints at an unexpected role they may play in sustaining Arctic ecology.

“This is not 1980s-movie cryobiology,” said Manu Prakash, the study’s senior author and a bioengineer at Stanford University, in a statement. “The diatoms are as active as we can imagine until temperatures drop all the way down to -15 C [5 degrees Fahrenheit], which is super surprising.”

That temperature is the lowest ever for a eukaryotic cell like the diatom, the researchers claim. Surprisingly, diatoms of the same species from a much warmer environment didn’t demonstrate the same skating behavior as the ice diatoms. This implies that the extreme life of Arctic diatoms birthed an “evolutionary advantage,” they added.

An Arctic exclusive

For the study, the researchers collected ice cores from 12 stations across the Arctic in 2023. They conducted an initial analysis of the cores using on-ship microscopes, creating a comprehensive image of the tiny society inside the ice.

To get a clearer image of how and why these diatoms were skating, the team sought to replicate the conditions of the ice core inside the lab. They prepared a Petri dish with thin layers of frozen freshwater and very cold saltwater. The team even donated strands of their hair to mimic the microfluidic channels in Arctic ice, which expels salt from the frozen apparatus.

As they expected, the diatoms happily glided through the Petri dish, using the hair strands as “highways” during their routines. Further analysis allowed the researchers to track and pinpoint how the microbes accomplished their icy trick.

The researchers developed and used special microscopes and experimental environments to track how the diatoms move through ice. Credit: Prakash Lab/Stanford University

“There’s a polymer, kind of like snail mucus, that they secrete that adheres to the surface, like a rope with an anchor,” explained Qing Zhang, study lead author and a postdoctoral student at Stanford, in the same release. “And then they pull on that ‘rope,’ and that gives them the force to move forward.”

Small body, huge presence

If we’re talking numbers, algae may be among the most abundant living organisms in the Arctic. To put that into perspective, Arctic waters appear “absolute pitch green” in drone footage purely because of algae, explained Prakash.

The researchers have yet to identify the significance of the diatoms’ gliding behavior. However, knowing that they’re far more active than we believed could mean that the tiny skaters unknowingly contribute to how resources are cycled in the Arctic.

“In some sense, it makes you realize this is not just a tiny little thing; this is a significant portion of the food chain and controls what’s happening under ice,” Prakash added.

That’s a significant departure from what we often think of them as—a major food source for other, bigger creatures. But if true, it would help scientists gather new insights into the hard-to-probe environment of the Arctic, especially as climate change threatens its very existence. The timing of this result shows that, to understand what’s beyond Earth, we first need to protect and safely observe what’s already here.

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September 10, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

World Liberty Blacklists Justin Sun’s Ethereum Wallet After Moving Millions in WLFI

by admin September 7, 2025

In brief

A wallet linked to Tron founder Justin Sun was blacklisted by World Liberty Financial after moving $9 million in WLFI tokens.
WLFI token has dropped 19% to $0.18, with retail traders who bought at launch prices above $0.33 now down 45%, while early investors like Sun remain profitable with 10x+ gains
Sun denied selling tokens in a message on X, claiming the transfers were just “deposit tests.”

An Ethereum wallet linked to Tron founder Justin Sun has been blacklisted after moving more than $9 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens, or WLFI, according to blockchain data.

At the time of writing, WLFI, the native token of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial DeFi project, is changing hands for $0.1789, or 19% lower than it was this time yesterday. The token only just started trading on exchanges earlier this week. Exchange volumes indicate the token has been especially popular with traders in South Korea, on exchanges Upbit and Bybit.

It’s unclear why World Liberty Financial would have blacklisted the wallet, identified as belonging to Sun by blockchain analytics platforms Arkham and Nansen, for transferring tokens. But it is possible that early investors, like Sun or the Tron DAO, would have received token warrants that prohibit them from selling for a set amount of time.

Neither World Liberty nor Justin Sun immediately responded to a request for comment from Decrypt.

Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, told Decrypt he’s not convinced Sun moved the tokens with the intention of selling.

“To be honest, I don’t think this dump has anything to do with Justin Sun. He barely moved funds to centralized exchanges, and this morning’s transfers were just from one of his addresses to another,” he said. “His latest statement saying he has nothing to do with the dump looks legitimate.”

我们的地址只是笼统地做了几笔交易所充值测试，金额非常低，然后做了一个地址分散，没有涉及任何买卖，不可能对市场产生任何影响。

— H.E. Justin Sun 👨‍🚀 (Astronaut Version) (@justinsuntron) September 4, 2025

The Sun statement the Bubblemaps team was referring to appeared on X in Mandarin. In it, Sun said the wallet “only generally did a few exchange deposit tests, the amounts were very low, then did a distribution to one address.” He added that the tests “did not involve any buying or selling,” and that it would have been impossible for the token movements to have impacted the market.

Another Bubblemaps analyst, the pseudonymous Deebs, added that sending tokens to an exchange doesn’t prove that they were sold.

“The $9 million transfer that Arkham and others have cited was simply a transfer to another wallet under his control. He did not send those funds to an exchange (yet),” he said. But he cautioned that it’s possible that World Liberty has access to non-public information that explains the blacklisting.

Some analysts have been incredibly skeptical about the World Liberty project. Last week, analysts at Compass Point flagged WLFI as “another catalyst that could potentially decimate retail traders.”

And users on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt parent company Dastan, have overwhelmingly agreed with them. Before the market closed yesterday afternoon, odds had tipped entirely in favor of WLFI seeing a red candle within its first 69 hours of trading.

Early investors of the WLFI token, including Sun, managed to buy in at just $0.015 per token, or a $1.5 billion valuation, and are still very much in the green by more than 10X. But those retail traders who bought WLFI as soon as it became tradeable at a price above $0.33? They’re now down 45%.

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September 7, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

WLFI Blacklisted Justin Sun’s Wallet For Moving $9 Million

by admin September 5, 2025

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto protocol linked to the Trump family, has taken the significant step of blacklisting a blockchain address belonging to its key investor, Tron founder Justin Sun. The action, executed on Thursday, effectively freezes 595 million unlocked WLFI tokens valued at approximately $107 million.

Blockchain records from Aarkham Intelligence, confirm that at 09:18 UTC, Sun’s wallet (0x5AB) pushed the $8.89 million transfer to 0xbdF…74B0. The recipient address was blacklisted soon after, triggering red flags.

In response to the development, Sun stated on X, that the transfers were not for selling purposes. He described the activity as “a few generic exchange deposit tests, with very low amounts, and then created address dispersion.” He insisted the transactions did not involve “any buying or selling” and “could not possibly have any impact on the market.”

The $9M transfer cost just $0.69 in gas, cheap for such high stakes. The funds originated from Sun’s Ethereum address and were routed through World Liberty Fi’s smart contract before landing at the destination now under restriction.

Sun’s Exposure Casts Shadow Over WLFI

The transfer adds to growing skepticism around WLFI, already under watch for its controversial backers and political ties. The token’s price has dropped over 21% in the past 24 hours.

This isn’t the first headline-grabbing move from Sun’s wallet. Over the past 72 hours, he’s shuffled assets across WLFI, USDT, and several others. His crypto portfolio, still sitting above $2.25 billion, is led by holdings in TRX, stETH, BTC, and AETHWETH.

The blacklisting of a wallet connected to one of crypto’s most recognizable figures is more than a blip. It spotlights the ongoing compliance vacuum in DeFi and the risks that come with massive, opaque token flows.

WLFI’s future now hinges on whether this was an isolated incident or the start of wider scrutiny. For investors and regulators alike, the real test may be what—and who—gets flagged next.

Also read: Figma’s 14% Drop Spotlights Bitcoin Holdings and Lockup Expiry

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September 5, 2025 0 comments

helldivers 2 arrowhead CCO johan pilestedt

Product Reviews

8 months after moving on from Helldivers 2, Johan Pilestedt returns to thank everyone for welcoming Xbox divers into the fold: ‘All the stories I read make my heart sing’

by admin August 30, 2025

One nice thing about Helldivers 2 is that you can join random sessions with strangers all night and never find a bad egg. Emerge from the cryostasis transportation pod on another diver’s ship and you’re likely to be greeted with a salute, handshake, or hug emote. That’s just how Helldivers roll.

The community’s been on its extra-best behavior this week with an uptick of fresh recruits, as Helldivers 2 became the first Sony-published game to come to Xbox. It’s been one big welcoming party: Xbox players are sounding off on Reddit to thank the veterans helping them, walking them through confusing missions, and not freaking out when they accidentally blow the whole squad up. I’ve been playing with my fiancée every night this week, and it’s been fun to join Xbox lobbies and show them the ropes (insist on driving the car and then flipping it repeatedly).

The wholesome surge has been so nice to watch that Johan Pilestedt, Arrowhead’s chief creative officer who left the Helldivers 2 team in January to work on a new game, popped back into the Helldivers subreddit to thank community members with his first post in over a year.

“Over the last couple of days I’ve seen so many comments from the new players joining the community and they are truly wonderful and inspiring. That so many are shocked by how kind and empathic this community is, shows that we need more kindness in our digital lives,” wrote Pilestedt.

“I want to say, on behalf of everyone that gave the better part of a decade to make Helldivers, that we truly appreciate all of you. From the veterans of Malevelon Creek (o7), to those that fought on Meridia, defended Super Earth and held EotS for the way you have treated and helped the new recruits joining from Xbox and elsewhere.”

Helldivers 2 x Halo: ODST Legendary Warbond | PS5 & PC Games – YouTube

Watch On

While he’s still involved with the game as studio leadership, Pilestedt has relinquished his day-to-day Helldivers duties to game director Mikael Eriksson and Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani. He’s directing Arrowhead’s next game, which is still a big mystery.

“All the stories I read make my heart sing—this unity and friendship is why I make games and I look forward to a decade of Helldivers with you all.

“Now go roleplay space fascists!” he concluded.

The Xbox release of Helldivers 2 coincided with a special Halo 3: ODST-themed warbond with two armor sets and four Halo guns faithfully recreated in Super Earth’s image. The next major update comes next week, introducing underground bug missions and a new Terminid wyvern monstrosity.

You can read Pilestedt’s full post below:

A Humble “Thank you” from r/Helldivers

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August 30, 2025 0 comments