It’s Humpday Wednesday 1/8/2025 and CES 2025 week underway and we’re bound to see and hear plenty of what is coming out later this year and beyond — including some early Stern Pinball Dungeons & Dragons Pinball.
But first, something we already predicted here at PGM back on February 15, 2024: 50-series graphic cards are here! See SPECULATIVE: Nvidia 50-series Could Be Ready by Q4-2024, Early 2025
PGM member MCAP was first on Tuesday 1/7/25 morning to post the screenshot in our Discord displayed at the top of this post.
$2,000 USD seems to be the new norm for the highest end GPU, the RTX 5090 with “3,400 AI TOPS” — if you’re doing a double take, what the heck is AI TOPS? Here’s what we know so far from press releases and other sources.
“The GeForce RTX 5090 GPU — the fastest GeForce RTX GPU to date — features 92 billion transistors, providing over 3,352 trillion AI operations per second (TOPS) of computing power. Blackwell architecture innovations and DLSS 4 mean the GeForce RTX 5090 GPU outperforms the GeForce RTX 4090 GPU by up to 2x.” – NVIDIA Blackwell GeForce RTX 50 Series Opens New World of AI Computer Graphics | NVIDIA Newsroom
Clever use of the qualifier words “up to” meaning it’s possible to get to 2x the performance of a 4090, which is already ridiculous performance for any game, the question is how often will it reach this? It won’t take long once these GPU are in the hands of benchmark testers and we’ll find out under a wide variety of applications including, yes, of course, games.
Games is what we do at PGM, so that’s the focus here. There haven’t been a huge number of games released in the 40-series era that have needed the power. Yes, if you want all the ray tracing and shadows at 4K pushing high framerates, that’s where the 40-series shined, but for those happily gaming without the visual flare and at lower resolutions and framerates, it was not as necessary. This makes one wonder how many games will take advantage of the 50-series power?
Maybe the better question is how many emulators of more modern systems will be helped by 50-series? Am thinking PS4+ consoles being emulated, definitely, because that space has been weak. There were even some PS3 games that didn’t emulate well with 40-series GPU.
Here’s a screenshot showing PS4 emulation for RPCS4 (https://rpcs4.com/compatibility) and not even half the games are playable. With 50-series GPU, expect this to look more like PS3 emulation where well over 90% are playable.
So, emulation is one area that definitely will improve with 50-series, meaning gamers can, well, you know, run more games they legally own 😉 on their souped up PCs.
But what about new PC games that immediately take advantage of this power? GTA6 most certainly will, especially at the highest settings. New MMORPG will. Let’s go back to NVIDIA’s press release and read the tea leaves.
“DLSS 4 also introduces the graphics industry’s first real-time application of the transformer model architecture. Transformer-based DLSS Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution models use 2x more parameters and 4x more compute to provide greater stability, reduced ghosting, higher details and enhanced anti-aliasing in game scenes. DLSS 4 will be supported on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs in over 75 games and applications the day of launch.”
Only 75 games at launch out of how many games? Of course this is the high end graphics game on PCs and those playing it know the answer: you don’t need these high end graphics cards right away. This will lower the prices of the 40-series of course, which is the good news, so that those with 30-series PCs can upgrade to 40-series. The 40-series GPU will be plenty good enough for another couple years at least for most new games. Yes, there will be a few that if you want to run the latest and greatest at the highest settings will require the 50-series.
But then there will be the 60-series, making the same situation happen all over again. It’s financially savvy to stay a cycle or two behind, unless you’re a competitive, professional gamer requiring the absolute highest framerates in very specific games you compete in or you just want to see things graphically at the max possible highest quality anywhere possible at the moment. The rest of the world? This is like drinking high end booze vs. the cheaper stuff: you get a buzz either way, one just costs a lot more and might taste a bit better, depending on how good your tastebuds are.
In our Discord chat, I mentioned a number of additional comments, which if you’re a PGM member, check those out or ask me about it on a PGM Twitch stream. Normally, I’d copy/paste them here, with some mostly cosmetic editing, but busy with the day job (12+ hours yesterday) and I wanted to get the gist of my concerns here with these GPU upgrades as it relates to actually playing the games.
That’s the heart of the concern: how much will having a $2,000 RTX-5090 make these games more fun to play? Is it just a tech fireworks show that when you get past that, does it make the games more fun to play? Do you need it? This is the question for the comments area and something to ponder. You can buy an entire gaming PC, a pretty good one right now for $2,000 and yet here all you get is the GPU. We’re talking thousands and thousands of bucks for a high end gaming PC and at the end of the day a relatively tiny number of games that will take advantage. Your mileage may vary on whether or not this important and welcome further discussion below in the comments and in the future.
Others playing Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye at CES 2025
This takes us to the exciting pinball moment at CES 2025: Stern Pinball Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye. PGM member therexershow (https://www.youtube.com/@therexershow) lives in Las Vegas and he was the first video I watched with his thoughts on the game here:
A minor spoiler here, but Rexer’s overall comment is toward the end where he says this is “maybe a top 50 game.” He liked it better than Venom, but that isn’t saying too much. He also mentions things he does like, but the dragon, surprisingly, isn’t really one of them. That dragon looks amazing to me and takes up a lot of the mid to upper left with the cave. Also, there are some code issues, of course, but we covered the code concerns here: The Dragon in the room that is Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye from Stern Pinball. Rexer also seemed to favor the pro over the premium, but in the pro apparently the dragon only moves up and down and does not shoot out the (fire)balls. Also, the pro doesn’t have the popup dungeon where you sink the ball. I’m feeling like those two features are pretty important, but maybe they won’t be when I play the game.
YouTube is blowing up with first impression videos from a bunch of CES attendees, so just do a search and pick out any other CES attendee and roll from there. There is one with a cosplay Bee Kong where he speaks to both Seth Davis and Zach Sharpe about D&D in front of D&D (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffPVUldsVg), for example, you might want to check out. Plenty of others, too many to take time to list here, including shorts, so you can decide who you want to check out further, if you like, plus there is a ton of speculation and D&D pinball talk going on. This game is getting some serious, serious pinball buzz out there right now. Might be even more than the last game, Metallica: Remastered, but it could just be the added CES hype. Time will tell if the buzz has legs.
I’m not at CES this year, of course, and can’t play it. It’s among a few reasons I want to be at CES 2025 this year, but otherwise I’ll just link up last year’s message: Didn’t Go? It’s OK, Here’s Why I Stopped Following and Covering CES to make the rest of the world that’s not there not feel alone 😉
That said, it’s probably going to be a little while before I’m able to flip the game myself on location somewhere and offer my first thoughts, but rest assured, I’ll have plenty more about this game after playing. Rexer likes the game, just isn’t blown away by anything on it. He points out a co-op mode that sounds fun where you can play along with others but cites specific shots in Jaws that he played first last year’s 2024 CES as being more innovative (my word, not his).
Pinball machines are like books and movies to me. Reviews from others, thoughts from others, they are all interesting, but don’t really have any impact on whether or not I’ll like whatever it is. These thoughts can alter my interest and excitement in checking out a game, which is the reason I’m always thankful for others that share. You don’t have to read or watch others if you feel that spoils the experience. I get that, sometimes I’m like that, too.
Anyway, I’ll be reading the CES 2025 coverage from others and we’ll be talking more about it on this Sunday’s Score Chasing Recap show. We’re playing Spinmaster, btw, and it’s a fun yo-yo arcade game from the past, if you’ve never played, join us and submit your score: Season 3 Week 18: Spinmaster – How to Join Us, Play, Beat Your Personal Best
HI Todd!
I think Rexer is right and Stern DND is a good game if your like roleplaying games with level progression and simple fun shots. However, if your looking for deep rulesets this isn’t the game for you. I think the PRO is the way to go based on Rexer’s reasons, I wouldn’t buy the more expensive editions, but what do you think??
He only bought premium Sterns, right? I don’t think he has ever bought any pros, so I think his opinion on buying a pro in this case when he has played less than 10 times is probably premature. I much prefer a dragon that is more interactive, shoots balls, there are 8 ball multiball vs. 6 on the pro. The dragon spits out balls at you on the premium vs. not on the pro and I’d say that is a pretty significant thing to consider for a game with literally “dragon” in the title of the game. Then again, I saw Cooltoy say the popup dungeon on the premium literally just holds the ball, it doesn’t go into a subway system underneath and re-emerge anywhere else. That is kinda lame. So, it comes down to the dragon and whether or not someone wants 6-ball or 8-ball and if they care about the popup dungeon hit. I’m not sure whether or not this is a big deal. On X-Men the Sentinel moving up and down isn’t significant. On James Bond, the ball lock on the missile isn’t that big of a deal and having to deal with magnet James Bond flying down isn’t really that significant either there … so it’s a game by game choice. I don’t know which I prefer until I play both premium and pro and compare. I know with X-Men I felt the pro was perfectly fine. I also prefer John Wick pro over the premium. I’m not sure on D&D yet. Will see. As you know, I’ve bought one pro and one premium, so I’ve literally bought both new in box games and weigh the options on each game. I think this is literally a game by game decision and some games it really doesn’t make much sense buying the premium and spending the extra money. Here on D&D I’m not sure yet.