Games: Shortages, Mankala Engine, Originality, and RPCS3

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 26, 2026

• The Straits Times ☛ Penang chipmakers cheer soaring demand even as gamers feel the pain

  Malaysia's chip sector, particularly Penang, is banking on new AI-driven memory demand.

• Implementation Plan for Tournaments in Mankala Engine

  We are almost at the end of our community bonding period. It’s been nearly 1 month since GSOC 2026 results, and the time to formulate a proper plan for the future plan of action regarding our project💡

  Here is the breakdown of a rough plan of what I want to achieve during these 12 weeks.

• Paris Buttfield-Addison ☛ Games Are the Art Form of Our Time — Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison

  Here are the highlights.

  Games are the art form of our time. In 2025, 82% of Australians played them, the average player was 35, and women now make up just over half of all players. On the government’s own data, digital games development has been the fastest-growing of all cultural and creative activities in the country over the past decade. Games are also one of our most export-heavy creative industries: 93% of the Australian sector’s revenue comes from overseas.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Shape the planet and evolve strange creatures in Planetary Life with Steam Deck support | GamingOnLinux

  Planetary Life is an intriguing looking planet and life sandbox simulation game, where you get to shape everything from the planet to the creatures.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ OptiScaler Client recently added Linux support to make managing upscalers easier | GamingOnLinux [Ed: Microsoft's C# and GitHub are bad news/sign though]

  OptiScaler is a tool that lets you replace upscalers in games, and the OptiScaler Client can make it all a lot simpler to do. OptiScaler Client is made by a different team so it's not directly affiliated with OptiScaler.

  From the GitHub page: "OptiScaler Client is a modern, high-performance desktop utility designed to simplify the installation, management, and update of the OptiScaler mod across your entire game library. Built with C# and Avalonia UI."

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Unreal Engine 6 revealed with a major Rocket League upgrade - the teaser concerns me | GamingOnLinux

  At the recent Paris Major, fans were treated to a teaser of a next-gen Rocket League upgrade powered by an also new announcement of Unreal Engine 6. Currently, Rocket League is on a rather old Unreal Engine 3.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ HID Remapper added support for the new Steam Controller | GamingOnLinux

  HID Remapper is a useful open-source programmable adapter for USB input devices, with a recent release adding support for Valve's new Steam Controller.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam Machine release closing in with an appearance on the Vulkan conformant product list | GamingOnLinux

  The official Vulkan API Conformant Products list from The Khronos Group recently had Valve's Steam Machine appear on it - so a release is likely quite soon.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Retro fantasy slashers Witchaven and Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance get delisted in June | GamingOnLinux

  Publisher SNEG have announced that the classics Witchaven and Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance will be vanishing from stores on June 15th. No reason was given for why the games are going to vanish, but they've been given a big discount so you can pick them up to keep for cheaps.

• Emulation

  • Video Cardz ☛ PlayStation 5 tested as a PS3 emulation console with RPCS3

    Digital Foundry is exploring the Linux implementation on PlayStation 5. Things that were previously impossible, like running old games through emulation on a modern console, are now relatively simple thanks to advancements in PC emulation for PS5-Linux. For this, they used RPCS3 running natively on the console. This is not an official Sony backward compatibility feature, and it requires a PS5 on exploitable firmware.

  • PS3 Emulation Tested on PS5 under Linux with RPCS3 – Does it work?

    Using the PlayStation 5’s Linux Project, Digital Foundry has tested the RPCS3 PlayStation 3 emulator on Sony’s newest console. Using RPCS3, the team were able to play PS3 games on PS5, something Sony has been unable to achieve officially.

    Many PlayStation 3 exclusives remain locked to that platform, despite a push for strong backwards compatibility in all current-generation consoles. Simply put, the PlayStation 3’s exotic hardware is difficult to emulate, but does PS5 have what it takes to make this possible?