#also why is it even saying this????? my Xbox isn’t out of storage at all so I have no idea why it’s saying it can’t save any more data

[stoned-ratpack]

My Xbox has randomly decided to just tell me it can’t save any more data for Skyrim. This is fine.

[gingerbreton]

Dragon age questions

Tagged by @bitchesofostwick thank you my dear ❤️

01) favorite game of the series? Origins by far. I love the story and the characters and how we were introduced to the world. Followed by DA2, I love the dynamic with the companions and how different it is to the first game. It’s also an easy nip in do a mission if you’ve not got much time. You’re not going to be stuck in the fade for hours!

02) how did you discover Dragon Age? I bought it as a present for my hubby (then bf) when it came out in 2009. We already loved mass effect but fantasy was more my thing than sci-fi (don’t get me wrong, I do love sci-fi) so the idea of dragon age was just fantastic.

03) how many times you’ve played the games? The first two I have played quite a lot. Origins maybe 15..? DA2 maybe 7? I’ve only played Inquisition once. The first two I tend to always have playthrough on to the go, whether or not I’m regularly playing it.

04) favorite race to play as? Human (not that there is a choice in 2). I don’t know why, but I’m more likely to play as an elf in other games. Maybe my need for power means I just have to be able to rule Ferelden 😬

05) favorite class? Rogue! I’m all about the loot! I get way too frustrated in DAO if I’m not rogue and I can’t open shit until we pick up leliana. I have been known to shout ‘what is the point of you’ at Daveth. I’m more likely to go mage in DA2 because you pick up varric so early (plus force mage specialty is the best).

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?  I have to make a conscious decision to try and change my choices, otherwise I’ll slip into making the same ones over and over. Although to be honest, I love the story and still enjoy it even if I do make all the same choices. It’s your game, play the story you want to.

07) go-to adventuring group? DAO always Alistair, usually Morrigan, then either Lel/Zev (definitely if I’m non-rogue) or Wynne. DA2 always Anders and usually varric (swapping for Isabella for certain quests), I’ll take Carver in Act one and Aveline in 2-3. I can’t say I’ve played enough Inquisition to have a go-to group.

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into? My warden, Ysabelle. She is far from DA canon though, her background is more like Daveth than Cousland. She does have a long fic in the process, featuring Aedan Cousland as well (my other properly formed warden oc), and she has taken over basically all my one shots and exists in multiple AUs now.

09) favorite romance? Alistair definitely but followed fairly closely by Anders.

10) have you read any of the comics/books? I’ve got the comics, the world of thedas books and the novels. I’ve read most of the 2 volumes of World of Thedas. It’s a fab reference and has some wonderful bits of history in there. I’ve just started Stolen Throne today and I’m loving it. The comics are a new addition to me, so I’ve had a flick through and they are beautiful but I haven’t read them properly yet.

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book? I don’t think I could chose! They are so different and they all add so much. I am in World of Thedas most often.

12) favorite DLCs? DAO Soldier’s Peak has an important significance for Izzy (plus you get a storage chest that levels things up!), but personally I love Return to Ostagar because I think Ostagar is my favourite location in all the games. I just think how breathtaking it would look with modern graphics. The idea and location were stunning enough back then. So yeah, any excuse to get back to Ostagar (plus fantastic weapons like Maric’s sword and Duncan’s).

13) things that annoy you. How slow combat is in DAO. It can feel like it takes 5 mins to get to a spot where it’ll let you stab someone, and by that point Morrigan has zapped them to death. In DAOA and DA2 being so restricted to when you can speak to your companions devastated me. I loved how much you could chat in DAO.

14) Orlais or Ferelden? Ferelden all the way!!

15) templars or mages? I am definitely a mage girl. No chantry sympathy here. Free the circles!

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? Ysabelle and Aedan are in the same universe as wardens together. I haven’t decided on a canon Hawke for that universe yet though, let alone an inquisitor.

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) Aedan’s mabari is The Bann. I can’t say I’m too inventive with naming with other names though.

18) have you installed any mods? Ugh I’m not sure I’m emotionally ready to talk about bloody mods. Got dragon age on pc for said purpose just this week and it’s been a nightmare of crashes and inexplicably disappearing npc hair. I’m very close to telling the pc to do one and go back to my vanilla Xbox gaming.

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden? It would have been a dream for Aedan except for the circumstances it came about through. He resented Duncan for a long while. While Izzy would have been hanged for her repeated thievery in Denerim if she hadn’t ended up recruited (but like I say, she isn’t exactly a traditional DA origin).

20) hawke’s personality? Purple with the occasional blue flutter. My Hawkes are just plain sarcastic.

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?  Nope

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? Aedan would have stopped Fergus and the men marching to Ostagar so Highever was properly protected. Izzy would have come clean about her family’s past warden association and avoided disruptive drama to the group. Selene Hawke might well have thrown herself in front of the ogre near Lothering in the hope of saving her family from suffering the loss of one of the twins. An event she sees as the beginning of the end of her family.

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? Ysabelle is 100% against canon! Outside of the long fic, Aedan’s OTP is actually with @magpiesandmabari ‘s warden Yana Surana. They are a very entertaining couple.

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone? I suppose everybody’s ocs must have a bit of themselves in there. But I can’t say I’ve purposefully set out to create any character in someone’s image.

25) who did you leave in the Fade?  I will never leave Alistair Theirin in the fade. Anyone else is potentially fair game.

26) favorite mount? I don’t have one

Tagging: @magpiesandmabari @laurelsofhighever @weirdnproudofit @allisondraste and anyone who wants to. Just tag me, I’d love to see it!

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 on Xbox & PlayStation 4: New Game Patch (July 19th, 2018)

There’s a Sims 4 update available for players on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. 

Update: 07/19/2018 – v1.07

Hello Simmers!

What a summer! As you may have heard, we have been hard at work preparing for the arrival of our fluffy companions in Cats & Dogs. We haven’t stopped there though, we have added Households, Lots and Rooms created by members of The Sims 4 Community into My Library and continued to make a number of performance improvements. Of course, we have been gathering and addressing your feedback and reports too.

Rather than giving you a high-level version of what you can expect how about I just tell you.

What’s New?

Performance improvements mean that you should be able to get into your Worlds quicker, loading times will be shorter and things will be smoother.

The Auto Save feature had been a little too temperamental for our liking so we have reviewed the feature and made improvements to the way it works so it is more reliable.

My Library expanded with creations from The Sims 4 Community. The new additions bring Households, Lots and Rooms.

We have also added the Piece of Cake Bakery which you may remember from the Get to Work announcement trailer.

We often get requests for features and one of the biggest requests has been to have the option to scale your roofs. We heard you and we added the feature into Build Mode.

General Issues

Manage Households was a little lacking in the managing part of the name by preventing you from deleting households. You can delete households you don’t need or want any more and truly manage households as you would expect.

If you max out your My Library storage you’ll be informed when you try to save more creations rather than finding out they silently disappeared.

Cursor speed and acceleration settings no longer reset after restarting the game.

While using the virtual cursor control scheme, the acceleration could feel like you were chasing an excited puppy around your lot. We got things under control and switching directions as you navigate the Lot shouldn’t feel so skittish. Remember, you can adjust speed and acceleration in the Game Options to get the feel you prefer.

The camera shouldn’t lose function when toggling bb.moveobjects in Build Mode

Trying to use the Virtual Cursor to live-drag from your inventory shouldn’t feel like a never-ending chore. Now it is as simple as select and drag, just like it should be.

Don’t you just hate it when you finish loading only to be told that there is “Game Loading In Progress” when it looks like it has finished? Us too! When a lot has loaded, it is loaded and ready to go, just like it should be.

Placing a Styled Room from My Library shouldn’t stop your controls from working as expected.

Sometimes you don’t have room in your lot to place a staircase before rotating it, now you can rotate stairs into the orientation you want without having to place them first.

Stairs aren’t the only thing you can rotate without placing them either, you can now rotate whole empty rooms and even walls before deciding where you want them.

Simmers who use the Virtual Cursor control scheme rejoice as the Pin/Unpin Whim option is now open to you.

Virtual Cursor controls have been tweaked, adjusted and tweaked again so now you don’t continue to accelerate and zip around the screen uncontrollably. Switching directions you take the Virtual Cursor in will drop the acceleration to ¼ of what it was so you have more control of where you go.

Changing your mind and re-doing something is part of getting your perfect Sim in CAS. If you do change your mind, we won’t put you into an invisible UI anymore, I promise.

Cell phones are a lifeline for a lot of people and Sims aren’t any different. We spent a lot of time getting them set up with more reliable service so the cell phone works when it is needed and doesn’t stay on screen when it isn’t.

Occasionally, the camera momentum made it difficult to have precise navigation. We’ve made a few passes at improving the camera movement to make is easier to navigate the lot.

Cancelling Save and Play while in CAS isn’t possible anymore. If you did this previously, you might want to check My Library as you might have multiple versions of your Households that you might want to tidy up.

Family is key and if you have babies you’ll know how precious they can be. That is why switching Sims now acts like it should if you have any in your household.

Get to Work

Returning to active lot will no longer spam the action queue while you are at work in the scientist career.

The returning to active lot interaction won’t queue and cancel repeatedly if you decide to idle in the alien world.

In the videos out of Roswell they got up close with an Alien and now you can too while creating an Alien in CAS. Like other Sims, you can switch to detail edit mode and get closer to the extra-terrestrial Sims.

Ever visit a new place only to think that it feels familiar but not quite right in some way? That happened to us when visiting Sixam and realizing that it didn’t look as we expected so we got the ground crew in and updated the place.

Vampires

Receiving a welcome phone call from Vlad can be exciting, I mean, how often do you get a phone call from a vampire? Getting this unique call shouldn’t stop your controls from functioning so we addressed that.

Dine Out

Canceling object placement of objects selected through Lot Type requirements will no longer put you into one of those super-secret areas in the UI.

Editing an employee uniform won’t send your controls across the screen no matter how your employees feel about their new uniform design.

City Living

When you load into San Myshuno the virtual cursor shouldn’t get stuck. It used to, but now it doesn’t.

If you are lucky enough to get an invite to a festival but unlucky enough to have a parent chance card appear at the same time you’ll be happy to know that you’ll keep control of your World and Sims.

PlayStation 4

Pressing X should work when you need it most… When you press the X button.

Improvements to the way My Library saves means you should have more space for your creations.

Celebrate good times but come on, we don’t need to see the pack celebration screens over and over. They should only show the once now and viewed new Objects shouldn’t reset to look like everything is new again.

When you select Save Household you expect the household to be saved, right? Thought so, now your Saved Households will save to My Library as you would expect.

If you chose to change your Display Settings, the virtual cursor won’t be prevented from accessing all of the UI if you opt to display things smaller.

The Action Queue is meant to expand to fit in all the queued actions, that is how we came up with the name. What it shouldn’t do and doesn’t do anymore is expand to the top of the screen just because you chose to speed up time.

Travel and romance are two of life’s luxuries. That is unless you managed to have “Travel” queue up after performing the “Ask on Date” interaction. Then you just had a mini nightmare because you found yourself stuck in Manage World. We released the controls from the UI and now you can take your date globetrotting without the worry of getting stuck looking at where you could have visited.

Xbox One

They say that good things come to those who wait. We don’t like waiting so we have improved the loading times so that you shouldn’t see an extended loading screen before getting into game.

Styled Room showcases will align correctly if you adjust your margins settings.

Does a Sim have an aura? Well they might but it shouldn’t have been as prominent as it was, so we turned down the highlighting of Sims so it isn’t as distracting anymore.

That isn’t it either, we took a look at what was happening on the PC and Mac versions of The Sims 4 and brought over changes and updates to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions.

SimGuruLegacy

[mikegranich87]

Windows 11 review: Microsoft’s most pleasant OS—until it isn't

What's the point of Windows 11? With Windows 10, Microsoft had to make a big course correction from Windows 8, an ambitious yet flawed attempt at bringing PCs into the touchscreen era. Before that, Windows 7 was meant as a palate cleanser to help us forget about the bloated mess that was Vista. Given that Windows 10 was already pretty polished when it launched, and only got better over time, why the need for a whole new version?

After testing early builds for months, as well as the shipping release this past week (here's how to nab it yourself), it's clear that Microsoft isn't actually trying to fix much with Windows 11. It's basically a fresh coat of paint on top of Windows 10 (and likely a last-ditch attempt at rebranding the defunct Windows 10X.) But the more I use it, the easier it is to see that small design tweaks can go a long way. Windows 10 was laser-focused on productivity; it aimed to make you as efficient as possible. Windows 11 goes a step further: What if being productive was also pleasant and oddly relaxing? Windows, meet mindfulness.

What's new

At first glance, Windows 11 may seem like a radical departure from Microsoft's typical desktop template — an aesthetic that hearkens all the way back to Windows 95. The taskbar is still around, but now all of your icons are centered by default. The Start menu is back with a redesigned look featuring pinned and recommended apps (you can also hit All Apps to see everything you've got installed). RIP, Live Tiles — nobody ever used you.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

This refreshed look extends throughout Windows 11: App windows now have rounded corners; icons, Windows Explorer and the Settings app look sharper than ever; and even the sound effects have been cleaned up. This is Windows at its most refined. To put it uncharitably, though, it also seems a lot like macOS. But fret not, Windows diehards: You can still shove the entire taskbar back to the left side of the screen. (Editor’s note: Where it belongs.)

Microsoft has also reworked system tray, for better and worse. Hitting the date and time brings up your notifications and calendar, while clicking on the volume or networking icons makes the new action center pop out. It’s similar to the system shortcuts in Windows 10, allowing you to change Wi-Fi networks, enable airplane mode and quickly change your brightness and volume. You can also easily reach some accessibility tweaks, like enabling the magnifier or color filters. Everything looks sleeker than Windows 10, though some options are gone entirely, like the ability to turn Night Lite settings on and off.

Windows 11 also marks a major return for widgets: bite-sized apps that also appeared in Windows 7. You can reach them by hitting the widget button in the taskbar, but frankly, I found them useless. These days, I don’t need a glanceable screen for my calendar, news and mail, not when my smartphone is always within reach.

Microsoft

Less noticeable than the taskbar changes, but still important, is the new Windows Store. It looks cleaner, with a left-hand navigation bar and multiple panes for individual app entries. I'd wager Microsoft just wanted to keep those install and purchase buttons in clear view at all times. Windows 10 is also getting the same Store app eventually, so it's not really an exclusive for the new OS. Eventually, we'll also see Android apps in the Microsoft Store, but it's unclear when that's happening.

Similarly, Windows 11 ships with the latest Xbox app, but that's also available on Windows 10. You'll still want to upgrade for the best overall gaming performance, though, as Windows 11 will be the only way to use Microsoft's DirectStorage technology on PCs. Whenever that does land it should dramatically speed up load times (assuming you have a compatible GPU and SSD) just like the Xbox Series S and X.

Microsoft

Calm from the start... mostly

On a new PC, Windows 11 welcomes you with a series of setup screens that feel like you're flipping through a spa brochure. Log into your Wi-Fi (or plug into Ethernet), enter your Microsoft credentials, and maybe grab a cucumber water while you wait.

As with Windows 10, you can choose to disable advertising IDs, which prevents ad tracking, and opt out of sending diagnostic information to Microsoft. But there aren't many other choices you'll have to make; the setup process basically runs on autopilot until you see the new desktop.

It's worth noting that Microsoft has made setup more restrictive for Windows 11 Home users: Both an internet connection and Microsoft account are required. You won't be able to set up a local user account, or use your computer at all, until you meet those requirements. Windows 11 Pro users won't have that limitation, which is good news for IT professionals and power users. But it could be frustrating for people without reliable internet access of their own.

(As of last year, the FCC said around 14.5 million Americans don't have steady broadband, defined as at least 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps uploads. Recent figures from Data Reportal say around 40 percent of the world's population are offline. Microsoft is probably assuming that the majority of its potential customers won't have an issue finding internet, but that goes directly against the company's moves towards increased accessibility.)

I'd expect many consumers will be upgrading their existing Windows 10 systems, rather than setting up a new computer. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't have a way for me to upgrade my PC with a final Windows 11 release. Based on what I've seen with the latest Windows 11 Insider previews, though, moving to the new OS appears to be very similar to installing a major Windows 10 update. On a Surface Laptop 4 I had lying around, the upgrade process took around 15 minutes after downloading the new OS via Windows update.

You're going to have a tougher time if you own an older PC that doesn't meet Microsoft's hardware requirements. You'll need a compatible Intel, AMD or Qualcomm processor; 4GB of RAM; and at least 64GB of storage. Also, you'll have to enable Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module), features that should make it harder for spyware and malware to attack your OS. Microsoft's PC Health Check app can help you see if your system is ready for Windows 11.

If you don't meet the upgrade requirements, you can download a Windows 11 ISO and install it manually, a method that bypasses Microsoft's CPU restrictions. Still, you'll need to be savvy enough to create a boot disk and deal with a more complex installation. Another caveat: manual installations may not receive some future Windows Updates, according to The Verge. (It sounds like Microsoft hasn't decided how restrictive it wants to be just yet.)

If you've built your own desktop PC, I'd suggest bracing yourself for additional upgrade complications. Microsoft's Health Check app initially said that my system — powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor, an ASROCK motherboard and 32GB of RAM — wasn't compatible with Windows 11. It turned out I needed to enable the AMD TPM 2.0 module and Secure Boot in my BIOS. But once I did all that, my system couldn't boot into my Windows 10 installation.

After a bit of sleuthing, I learned that I needed to convert my Windows 10 installation disk from MBR (Master Boot Record) to GPT (GUID Partition Table). So off I went into the command line to run some strings and pray for my Windows installation's safety. Five sweat-soaked minutes later, I rebooted and saw my trusty Windows login screen. Whew. From there, I was able to proceed with the Windows 11 Update as normal.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a Windows 10 installation on an MBR disk — that was the standard on older computers — so I'm hoping Microsoft eventually bakes that conversion into the entire Windows 11 setup process. I can't imagine average consumers trying to figure out command line prompts without wanting to throw their PCs out the window.

Microsoft

In use: A new look, new frustrations

Windows 11 is nice to use. Pleasant, even. Windows 10 wasn't ugly, but Windows 11's focus on design leads to a more refined experience at first. I enjoyed having color-matched themes. The new Settings app is a dream; it's actually easy to find things for once! I genuinely love the new automatic window snapping, which lets you shove an app to a particular area of your screen by hovering above the maximize icon. Even better, snapping a few apps together creates a group that you can easily revisit in the taskbar.

That facelift doesn't come at the expense of performance, either. Windows 11 feels just as fast as Windows 10 on all of my test systems. But I'll be more interested to see how it performs on PCs older than five years, which is about the cut-off for Microsoft's upgrade requirements.

As impressed as I am by the design changes, a part of me feels constrained by the new OS. No matter where you place your taskbar icons, for example, you won't be able to see app labels anymore. Microsoft has been pushing an icon-focused taskbar since Windows 7, but you always had the option to turn on labels, so you could see what was in an app window before you clicked on it. Dealing with that loss is the single biggest hurdle I had with Windows 11.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Now it takes me multiple clicks to find a specific Chrome window, or to locate an email I popped out of Gmail. Icons just aren't enough. I can understand why Microsoft took away labels: They make your desktop look chaotic. It's not nearly as zen as a simple line of high-resolution pictures.

But as a Windows user, I'm used to chaos. I was shaped by the instability of Windows 3.11; I learned to tame Windows XP as an IT admin; and I was there at the Windows 8 launch in Spain (an event that seems cursed in retrospect). Even after all of that, I'm still primarily a Windows user. If chaos can make me more productive, I embrace the madness. Sadly, Windows 11 doesn't give me that option. It just wants me to relax, damnit.

To be fair, I have similar issues with macOS. As pretty as it is, finding a specific app window can be frustrating. To mitigate that, I typically rely on Mission Control to establish hot corners that can either show me every open app, windows within a specific program, or the desktop. Windows 11 lets you set up a hot corner in the bottom right of your screen to show the desktop, but you'll have to rely on keyboard shortcuts to see open apps. (I'm still debating whether Alt + Tab or Win + Tab is better.)

After spending so much time with Windows 11, I'm begrudgingly getting the hang of the new taskbar, at least. I'd bet some Windows diehards will be similarly frustrated with the new Start menu, especially if they're used to seeing all of their apps instantly. Personally, I find the focus on shortcuts and recently added files and apps to be more useful. And as of Windows 10, I just hit the Windows key and start typing to search for specific apps. (I'm glad that's still practically instantaneous on the new OS.)

I’ve only dabbled in the Windows 11 touchscreen experience so far, but in general it feels easier to hit specific targets. Microsoft has also made apps more responsive to touch, so it’s being able to quickly expand and maximize windows feels less frustrating. You still won’t mistake Windows 11 for iPadOS, but I never expected Microsoft to go that far. This new OS is simply better for laptops that have touchscreens, and it’s far more usable for hybrid tablets like the Surface Pro.

While I've found Windows 11 pleasant overall, I'll be interested to see how mainstream users react to all of the changes. Some members of Engadget's staff initially found the new design to be ugly (some warmed up to it later), and at least one was grateful I explained how to move the taskbar back to the left. It's tough for Microsoft to make any major changes to Windows without having users throw a fit. (Remember everything that happened around Windows 8?) So I expect the initial reaction isn't going to be welcoming. Let's just say I'm glad I'm no longer in IT support for this transition.

Microsoft

So, who needs Windows 11?

To paraphrase Thanos, Windows 11 is inevitable. It's going to start rolling out to eligible Windows 10 users today, and it will ship with new PCs this Fall. Aside from re-learning the taskbar and Start menu functionality, there's not much of a reason to avoid it. The new Secure Boot requirements will make it a safer OS overall; gamers will eventually get faster loading times; and everyone can appreciate the clean new aesthetic.

It's a step forward, even if it isn't as momentous as Windows 10. It's also hard to ignore the story behind the new OS, which makes Windows 11 feel more like a way for Microsoft to save face after an embarrassing failure. In the fall of 2019, the company announced Windows 10X, an OS variant meant for dual-screened PCs. Those devices, like the intriguing Surface Neo, failed to arrive. (It's unclear if the complex new hardware was the roadblock, or if PC makers were waiting for Windows 10X to be completed.)

Microsoft announced last year that it was shifting the focus of 10X to single-screened devices, and it put the final nail in the coffin this May, when it said that Windows 10X development had stopped. A few weeks later, we got word that Microsoft was gearing up to reveal the next version of Windows, and shortly after that the Windows 11 leak occurred. On June 24th, with practically all of its new features spoiled, Microsoft officially revealed its new OS.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

In my head, I imagine the frantic meetings around Windows 10X's rocky development like something from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. With dual-screened devices a no-show, maybe they could just repurpose that work for traditional laptops, a harried Panos Panay would say. But why even make that a separate version of Windows 10? The PC market is pretty hot right now, perhaps there's a way to capitalize on that? And at some point, someone just said "Why not just go to 11?" A stunned silence. Applause all around.

Not to sound too cynical, but releasing a new OS is an easy way to encourage people to buy new computers. That's particularly true now that we're relying on our PCs more than ever, as many people are still working and doing schoolwork from home. A new version of Windows is no simple thing, and it’ll surely get more headlines and media attention than a mere Windows 10 update. (Stares directly into camera.)

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/windows-11-review-microsoft-mindful-os-200028040.html?src=rss

[your-dietician]

Best 4th of July weekend sales at Best Buy

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/health/best-4th-of-july-weekend-sales-at-best-buy/

Best 4th of July weekend sales at Best Buy

We may receive commission from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

Best Buy’s 4th of July weekend sale is going strong and the savings are so deep! (Photo: Getty Images)

Folks, it’s been quite a year (make that 16 months!), making this 4th of July feel like an “independence day” in more ways than one. How to celebrate? We have a lot of catching up to do. Surf, sand, pool, play — sure. But also shopping. This weekend brings some of the best deals of the season. Ready to upgrade and save big on the latest and greatest in tech? You’ve come to the right place. 

The retailer’s massive 4th of July Sale is dropping deep discounts on just about everything — from 4K TVs and wireless headphones to smart-home gear and kitchen appliances. The savings are massive this weekend, so treat yourself and scoop up what you need (or just really, really want) before it sells out. 

We’ve rounded up the top offerings at Best Buy’s big 4th of July Sale, with prices starting at just $10. Scroll and shop below:

Best TV sales

In case you need that summer vacation to the Rockies to be virtual, Sony’s latest and greatest is $250 off. (Photo: Best Buy)

On sale for $900 (down from $1,150), this Sony 65-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV is the latest from this iconic manufacturer. Its massive 65-inch 4K display delivers images you can practically reach out and touch. Sony’s state-of-the-art Processor X1 powers this beauty for true-to-life visuals, while HDR (High Dynamic Range) settings make sure colors stay bright and black levels stay, well, black.

“This is an excellent product. We upgraded our TV to this Sony,” raved a five-star Best Buy reviewer. “The picture is great. Our last TV was a 65-inch, so side-by-side this TV is a definite upgrade. The sound system is great and the Smart TV process is very responsive to our wireless internet connection. The TV connected to my phone and the voice recognition was simple to set up….”

While some streaming TVs come with Fire TV or Roku built-in, this Sony 65-inch 4K stunner features Google TV. This means you’ll have instant access to popular streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube, Prime Video and more, but you’ll also get a wide range of gaming apps like NBA Jam, Fortnite and Crossy Road — you won’t get that with a standalone Fire TV or Roku device. Just sync a wireless gaming controller via Bluetooth and you’re all set to get your game on. 

Story continues

Check out more TV sales below:

Insignia 43-inch Class F30 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $280 (was $320), bestbuy.com

Insignia 50-inch Class F30 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $350 (was $380), bestbuy.com

Sony 55-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV, $750 (was $950), bestbuy.com

Hisense 60-inch Class A6G Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Android TV, $450 (was $490), bestbuy.com

LG 65-inch Class CX Series OLED 4K Ultra HD Smart webOS TV, $2000 (was $2,200), bestbuy.com

Samsung 65-inch Class QN85A Series Neo QLED 4K Ultra HD Smart Tizen TV, $2,000 (was $2,200), bestbuy.com

Hisense 70-inch Class A6G Series LED 4K UHD Smart Android TV, $670 (was $700), bestbuy.com

Samsung 70-inch Class 7 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Tizen TV, $680 (was $750), bestbuy.com

Best home audio sales 

These Samsung Galaxy Buds+ will outperform your Airpods, and for much less. How do you like them apples? (Photo: Best Buy)

It’s easy to get distracted by quirky design flourishes and exotic add-ons, but at the end of the day, earbud shoppers know it’s all about delivering excellent audio. That, and getting them at a great price. Well, get ready to check both boxes: These Samsung Galaxy Buds+ — on sale for $100, or $50 off, at Best Buy — offer crisp, clear sound and punchy bass. The battery life is amazing: You’ll get 11 hours per charge, plus an additional 11 hours with the included wireless charging case. That’s nearly a full day of use! In a pinch? An hour of playback requires just a three-minute quick boost. You’ll love this feature when you’re about to go for a run and your buds are at zero.

Calls sound crystal-clear thanks to three microphones that reduce ambient background noise even if you’re in a busy location. “Good sound quality and noise cancelation can silence a barking dog,” shared a Best Buy fan. Woof!

Check out more home audio sales below:

Insignia RF Wireless Over-the-Ear Headphones, $100 (was $120), bestbuy.com

Sony ZX Series Wired On-Ear Headphones, $10 (was $20), bestbuy.com

LG Tone Flex HBS-XL7 Wireless In-Ear Headphones, $130 (was $150), bestbuy.com

Sony WF-SP800N True Wireless Noise-Cancelling In-Ear Headphones, $98 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Google Pixel Buds, $130 (was $180), bestbuy.com

JBL Club One Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones, $250 (was $350), bestbuy.com

Samsung HW-Q65T 7.1ch Sound bar, $400 (was $500), bestbuy.com

LG 5.1 ch High-Res Audio Sound Bar, $400 (was $450), bestbuy.com

Best tablet and smartphone sales

We haven’t seen a tablet presentation this impressive since Moses came down from the mountain. (Photo: Best Buy)

Been hankering to expand your computer arsenal with a tablet without going into hock? Here’s the deal you’ve been waiting for. On sale for $180 (was $230), the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 weighs just over a pound and features 32GB of storage (expandable up to 1TB via microSD card). That’s got it all over Apple’s entry level tablet, which isn’t expandable. And unlike the iPad, the Tab A7’s 10.4-inch display has a full HD widescreen for immersive viewing.

Also out-Apple-ing Apple? The A7’s camera set is better than the one that comes with the iPad. It has an eight-megapixel selfie cam with a five-megapixel rear shooter on the front for video calls. “Mostly use for mobile gaming. Tried to play PS4 remote play, and it worked,” reported a satisfied gamer. “Sound is great and build quality is better than iPad. Speed is seamless.”

Score the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 in gray and gold.

Check out more tablet and smartphone sales below:

OnePlus 8T 5G, $500 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Google Pixel 4a, $300 (was $350), bestbuy.com

Motorola Moto G Power, $130 (was $250), bestbuy.com

Samsung Galaxy Tab A, $120 (was $150), bestbuy.com

Surface Pro X, $800 (was $1,000), bestbuy.com

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus, $160 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Motorola Moto G Power, $70 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Microsoft Surface Duo, $700 (was $1,500), bestbuy.com

Best gaming sales

Grab a controller and make these your Dogs days of summer. (Photo: Best Buy)

Just because it’s fun-in-the-sun season doesn’t mean you won’t need to keep yourself flush with new gaming challenges. We’ve found a great one. Watch Dogs: Legion for Xbox One (also compatible with Xbox Series X) is now on sale for nearly 70 percent off — down from $60 to just $20. This action/adventure game and third installment in the franchise from Ubisoft takes place in a near future where London is on the verge of collapse. All-seeing surveillance state and private military are in control, while the fate of the city is in the hands of DedSec, a hacker group that wants to fight back for freedom. It’s as fun as it sounds, and an absolute steal at this price.

“This game is very fun to play,” raved a happy gamer. “The setting is amazing and the attention to detail makes it better…. I bought this for my grandson and he absolutely loved the story so much, he accidentally stayed up all night long playing the game. He said the storyline is very interesting and fun to complete. He also says he likes the fact that you get to choose strangers off the streets to work on your team. He has always loved technology so he absolutely loves this game and this view of what the future might be like.”

Check out more gaming sales below:

NBA 2K21 (PS4), $20 (was $30), bestbuy.com

SanDisk 400GB microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card for Nintendo Switch, $100 (was $180), bestbuy.com

Borderlands 3 (Xbox One), $10 (was $30), bestbuy.com

Dying Light: Anniversary Edition, $25 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Nintendo Switch), $20 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection, $20 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Deluxe Edition (Xbox Series X), $15 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Xbox One), $30 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Best smart home sales

It’s time for an alarm clock that’ll have you starting the day plugged in, wised up and entertained. (Photo: Best Buy)

It’s 2021 — shouldn’t you be asking a bit more from your alarm clock? Elevate the mundane with the Lenovo Smart Clock. It’s powered with Google Assistant for seamless syncing to a smartphone. It can rouse you with your favorite tunes, the weather, calendar reminders and that podcast you love. 

“Replaced my old alarm clock and a Google mini speaker with one device,” shared a savvy Best Buy shopper. “…I tell it good night when I am ready for bed and it turns off my lights, tells me the weather tomorrow and what is on my calendar the next day just like a Google Mini can do. Plus the clock face can show the current temperature along with the time.”

Really, who couldn’t use all the help they can get rousing themselves from bed in the morning? So why not let the Lenovo Smart Clock do it in digital style, and for just $40 (down from $80) at Best Buy?

Check out more smart home sales below:

Google Nest Wi-Fi Mesh Router (AC2200) (two-pack), $189 (was $269), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Hello Smart Wi-Fi Video Doorbell, $150 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Arlo Pro 4 Spotlight Camera Security (three-pack), $500 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Learning Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat, $200 (was $250), bestbuy.com

TP-Link Kasa Spot Cam, $40 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus, $170 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Mini Smart Speaker, $35 (was $50), bestbuy.com

Linksys Max-Stream AC1300 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 5 Router, $70 (was $100), bestbuy.com

Best vacuum sales

Trust us, this Dyson is a beast — save $100! (Photo: Best Buy)

The Dyson Outsize Total Clean Vacuum, which is on sale for $750, or $100 off at Best Buy, may not look like a power force, but this lightweight and cordless stick vacuum is actually a heavy-duty, deep-cleaning beast. It’s a Dyson, after all, so it’s built for powerful suction — but this one is also nimble and versatile enough to navigate the tightest corners. It even has a digital display that features a countdown clock, so you’ll always know when it’s going to run out of juice.

“The hands-down best cordless on the planet,” raved a delighted shopper. “I must say this vacuum is impressive and nothing short of amazing! This Dyson oozes sophistication and innovation while checking all the right boxes for corded vacuum replacement. This vacuum is the gold standard…. Be prepared to be shocked and in awe of the power and efficiency of this cleaning powerhouse. The real-time performance and battery gauge are extremely welcomed to this wireless cleaning solution.”

Check out more robotic vacuum sales below:

iRobot Roomba i3 (3150) Wi-Fi Connected Robot Vacuum, $350 (was $400), bestbuy.com

bObsweep bObi Classic Robot Vacuum & Mop, $394 (was $750), bestbuy.com

iRobot Braava jet m6 Wi-Fi Connected Robot Mop, $400 (was $450), bestbuy.com

Shark AI Robot VacMop Pro RV2001WD, $350 (was $480), bestbuy.com

iRobot Roomba i3+ (3550) Wi-Fi Connected Robot Vacuum, $550 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Shark AI Robot Vacuum RV2001, $300 (was $450), bestbuy.com

iRobot Roomba s9+ (9550) Robot Vacuum & Braava jet m6 (6112) Robot Mop bundle, $1,349 (was $1,550), bestbuy.com

Best home office sales

It’s two computers in one! Tablet or laptop, as you please. (Photo: Best Buy)

On sale for $249 (was $299), the sleek, incredibly thin Lenovo Chromebook Duet is more than just a laptop. It has a brilliant 10.1-inch Full HD touchscreen display (at 1920 x 1200 resolution) that works as a tablet but also attaches to its included keyboard case via Bluetooth for when you want laptop functionality. And shoppers love its long 10-hour battery life too.

“The device is lightweight. The screen is sharp, colorful, and bright,” shared a satisfied Best Buy shopper. “The keyboard has a very good feel, and the adjustment to it was very quick for me. The tablet by itself is very light — a joy to hold and use for long periods…The battery life is insane…”

Chromebook runs the latest version of ChromeOS, so you know you’ll get speedy results. And unlike Windows 10 or macOS laptops, with long loading times and complicated app downloads, you just log in to your Gmail account via Google Chrome and you’re good to go.

Check out more home office sales below:

Samsung Galaxy 4K Chromebook, $799 (was $999), bestbuy.com

Vankyo Leisure 3W Wireless Mini Projector, $80 (was $120), bestbuy.com

Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360, $1,350 (was $1,500), bestbuy.com

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go, $630 (was $700), bestbuy.com

Epson EcoTank ET-M3170 Wireless Monochrome All-in-One SuperTank Printer, $350 (was $500), bestbuy.com

Canon imageCLASS D570 Wireless Black-and-White All-In-One Laser Printer, $150 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Epson EcoTank ET-3710 Wireless All-In-One Inkjet Printer, $310 (was $380), bestbuy.com

WD Easystore 5TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive, $110 (was $180), bestbuy.com

Best kitchen sales

At just $60, this baby will pay for itself with all the greasy, yucky oil you won’t have to buy. (Photo: Best Buy)

Sure, it’s barbecue season, but you can never have enough home-cooking convenience, amirite? On sale for $60 (was $120), the Insignia Digital Air Fryer lets you fry, roast or bake your favorite foods at temperatures up to 400 degrees — whip up anything from chicken to veggies to breaded tilapia!

The large five-quart basket can hold up to five servings, so it’s great for having friends over for hangouts. Its timer features automatic shutoff, so you’ll never have to stress about burning your food or blowing up your electric bill. This air fryer also has a sleek stainless steel finish with an easy-to-navigate digital display, while its basket and pan are dishwasher-safe, so fewer dirty dishes to worry about. If you’ve ever deep-fried something in oil you know how messy your counter and walls can get, but not when using this baby! 

“I absolutely love this item,” reported a savvy shopper. “In the beginning, I thought it would be difficult to use and that it would dry my food out. Surprisingly, it’s really easy to operate and it keeps the food flavored after it’s complete. I have several other recipes I want to try with my air fryer. I can’t wait!”

Check out more kitchen sales below:

Margaritaville Bahamas Countertop Blender and Frozen Concoction Maker, $160 (was $210), bestbuy.com

Ninja Foodi, $200 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Frigidaire Mini Fridge with built-in Freezer, $179 (was $265), bestbuy.com

KitchenAid Pro 5 Plus 5-Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer, $430 (was $500), bestbuy.com

Keurig K-Elite Single-Serve K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker, $130 (was $170), bestbuy.com

Bella Pro Series Combo 19-Bar Espresso and 10-Cup Drip Coffee Maker, $150 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Yummly Smart Meat Thermometer, $89 (was $129), bestbuy.com

LG InstaView Four-Door French Door Refrigerator, $3,150 (was $3,500), bestbuy.com

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[deltahalo241]

Halo 3 Review

Halo 3 is probably the most popular game in the long running Halo Franchise. It was a system seller for the Xbox 360 and for many people, it was their gateway into the series. So while Halo 3 has managed to craft this legendary status around itself. Does it live up to it? And, looking back over 10 years since its launch, has it held up compared to modern games. These are the questions I intend to answer as I take a look back at the heavy hitting title of 2007 and give my honest opinions of it.

Starting with the story, we have to talk about the fact that Halo 2 was originally going to be the end of the franchise, and that Halo 3 only came about because Bungie set their sights too high and had to end Halo 2 on a cliffhanger. Because of this, Halo 3 has to both tell its own story, as well as finishing off Halo 2's. Halo 3 is comprised of 10 missions, though one is just a cutscene and doesn't really count. So all in all there are 9 missions in the game, making it somewhat shorter than Halo 2. The big issue for me when it comes to Halo 3's campaign is the pacing, or lack of it. The story goes nowhere for 6 out of the 9 missions, preferring to faff about on Earth. These 6 missions are what I believe to be the way Bungie were going to finish Halo 2, or how they were retro-actively ending Halo 2 at least. Specifically Mission 5 is where I believe the ending for Halo 2 would have been. Mission 6 has lots of problems of its own that need to be brought up. To sum it up, in Mission 6, the Flood arrives at Earth on an infected Covenant Battle-cruiser. Long time fans of the Halo series will know the Flood as the all consuming parasite responsible for wiping out the Forerunners, and who took over High Charity (The Covenants Holy City) at the end of Halo 2. So this is a pretty big deal. On board the Flood infested ship, Master Chief finds a message from Cortana talking about the Ark, this is the beginning of the issues. Cortana didn't know about the Ark, she wasn't with Johnson and Miranda when 343 Guilty Spark revealed its existence to them, so how could she have found out about it? One option could be that she took it from the database of Installation 04, but if so why didn't she tell anyone about it? It would seem like a pretty big deal to me, especially when there's a portal to it on Earth that she seems to know about as well. Secondly, how did she even get the message on the ship in the first place? She was on High Charity, the message is on a physical storage device. Did she create it and put it on the back of a Flood to carry into the vessel? And when & how did she record it without the Gravemind knowing? She was being interrogated by him after all and we know how it can corrupt AIs. The threat at the start of the mission, the Flood is also dispatched by the Covenant at the end, meaning the stakes for Earth are pretty much over. The Covenant have left and the Flood on the planet are dead. This mission also introduces us to a new plot point. According to Cortana, there's a way to stop the Flood for good at the Ark, without having to fire the remaining Halo rings, a Forerunner weapon that perhaps, wasn't finished in time to save them, but could save us. Unfortunatly, Halo 3 immediatley drops this plot point, making the entirety of mission 6, pointless. The plot point leads no-where and the threat introduced at the start of the level, is gone by the end of it. It feels like the remainder of some earlier draft of the story, one that I would have liked to see for sure.

As so much time is spent at Earth, it means by the time the game actually gets to the Ark, there's only 4 missions left in the campaign. This doesn't give you a lot of time to really explore the ark, like you could explore the ring in Halo CE. 2 missions in on the Ark and the Prophet of Truth is dead, killed in a cutscene like the Prophet of Mercy before him. This is so that the game can say 'Aha! The Gravemind is actually the true villain!' as he betrays you just after helping you reach Truth. The trouble is the game only has 2 missions left at this point, and in only one of them do you actually interact with the Gravemind to any large degree. His betrayal is also somewhat odd, his tentacles raise up above Master Chief and the Arbiter as he talks about how he's going to kill everything, then fails to grab a slow moving Pelican Dropship as it escapes, only succeding at knocking Arby and Chief off of it before having his tentacles retreat and sending waves of combat forms to attack you, basically it builds up a boss fight and then nothing happens, you just trudge back through the same hallway you fought through not 5 minutes earlier, only now you're fighting the Flood. The mission after that has you delve into the Flood nest in order to retrieve Cortana. The mission itself looks great, the flood biomass over the walls really gives you an idea of what could happen if the flood gets loose. The level layout is extremely confusing and you may find yourself dying a lot as there are constantly spawning enemies including many Flood Pureforms, alongside the confusing layout, you may find it to be an exercise in frustration. This level also serves to rob the Flood of some of their menace. Looking at it lore wise, Master Chief just walked into the belly of the beast, grabbed his holographic friend had a quick chat with her and then strolled back out again. The Flood don't even seem to do anything to stop the damaged pelican he escapes on from leaving. It makes them seem incompetant. The final mission of the game has you heading to a Halo Ring, the intent being to fire it to kill the Flood infestation. This actually conflicts with what we were told in Halo CE, that the Halos don't kill the Flood, they kill its food and let it starve to death. You fight through more Combat Forms and the gravemind taunts you a little, then you get to the final chamber. Guilty Spark informs us that the ring isn't ready to fire, and that it'll take a few more days before it's ready. When Johnson informs him that they don't have that much time, Spark goes rampant and kills him, this had been foreshadowed earlier when Spark zapped a marine who wanted to check out his internals, to make sure he was functioning right, but anyone who had played from Halo CE could probably see this betrayal coming a mile off. You then have to go through an easy and boring boss fight against Guilty Spark before you can finally activate the Halo ring, as the ring is unfinished it starts falling apart, destroying itself and dealing massive damage to the Ark. Which conveniantly solves that plot hole of the Rings only killing the Floods food. This leads to the final section of the game, a Warthog run similar to the one from Combat Evolved, though not as fun. And then the campaign ends. It's a bit sudden, and they of course tease that the franchise will be continued in the future (Which it was, with Halo 4)

Now that I've finished talking about the single player, I can move onto the multiplayer. This is what most people will remember when it comes to Halo 3, as it had a massive online community back when it was released. Halo 3 offered a good range of game-modes for the player to enjoy and a wide range of maps to play on, though you may find people vetoing maps until they get the ones they want, which means you'll find yourself playing on Valhalla or Guardian a lot for instance. The weapon sandbox has been expanded from Halo 2, now new Brute weapons are in the mix as well. Unfortunatly, there's not much reason to use them. There's not a lot that sets the Spiker apart from the SMG for instance, or the Mauler from the Shotgun. The Gravity Hammer is a fun new power weapon that rivals the Energy Sword and I think it's an excellent addition to the game. Two new grenade types have been added as well, the Fire-bomb grenade and the Spike Grenade. The Fire-bomb is what it says on the tin, an incendiary grenade that burns the person it hits to death. The Spike Grenade is similar in some ways to the Plasma Grenade, it sticks onto a vehicles or surface and explodes, the difference being that the Spike Grenade is somewhat directional. Like the Fire-bomb, it's a one hit kill. Some new vehicles have also been added to the mix. The UNSC gets the Hornet VTOL and the Mongoose ATV. The Covenant lose the Spectre from Halo 2, but gain the Brute Chopper and Prowler. The Chopper is the Brute equivelant to the Ghost, only has the special ability of being able to destroy light vehicles by ramming into them whilst boosting, which is usefel in game-modes like Capture the Flag, if the enemy team is escaping with the flag in a Warthog. The Prowler on the other hand is pretty much just the Spectre, but with a Brute theme. It has a single turret on the front, rather than the rear and two side skirts for passengers to hold on. Aside from that, there's nothing else unique about it, as I said; it's a Spectre with a Brute skin. Halo 3 was also popular for Major League Gaming at first. Though there were some noticable problems for those ultra competitve players. Halo 3's netcode was a little poor, this made blood-shots (Shots that hit the enemy from your perspective, but don't register in the game, and so do no damage) rather common, which annoyed a lot of competitive players. Halo 3 also did not utilize hitscan like the previous games in the series had, rather players had to lead shots if they wanted them to land. This took a bit of getting used to for a lot of veteren players. The Battle Rifle also had some poor weapon spread as it would seem as though one shot was always going to miss, unless you were right in your enemies face. The Assault Rifle also felt a little weak as well. This may in part be due to the sound design used on the weapons, which I felt was a little sub-par in a lot of ways. Another new feature that was added in Halo 3 was Forge mode, that let people edit maps by adding in new weapons of vehicles or items and the like wherever they wanted. The mode was a bit simplistic but I won't count that against the game here as it was the first instance of the feature and what players did with it far exceeded their expectations.

Overall I'd say Halo 3 is a pretty solid game, despite what may appear as my hatred for it, I do actually like the game. But its multiplayer far outdoes its campaign. Halo 3 is an old game now, going on 11 years old. You'll find the population for online is rather low, struggling to get above 2000 people at the best of times. This is compounded by the fact the player base is split across the Master Chief collection, Halo 3 on Xbox One backwards compatibility and those still playing the game on the Xbox 360. There are some issues with the multiplayer netcode, but if you're just playing casually, then you probably won't notice too many issues. While the weapon sandbox is a little dull, it's not too bad and there's a nice variety between the weapons. The campaigns story is quite bad but you'll probably have a lot of fun with the missions themselves, the scarab fights are quite fun (even if they make the scarab feel like a bit of a pathetic miniboss) and the settings are somewhat diverse. Halo 3 is available on the Xbox 360, as a backwards compatible title on the Xbox One and is also in the Masterchief Collection. If you would like to purchase a copy, then follow the link below:

Halo 3 - Xbox 360

[componentplanet]

Early Xbox Series X Tests Praise SSD, Backward Compatibility

Microsoft has given some publications free rein to publish reports on the Xbox Series X — or, at least, on certain features of the Xbox Series X. These are not full reviews; they specifically focus on the Xbox Series X’s backward compatibility. The Xbox Series S has not been tested or discussed in these articles.

Ars Technica and VentureBeat both tested various aspects of the Xbox Series X’s performance in older games, and how its SSD impacts these titles. First, Microsoft hasn’t been kidding about how much the new architecture cuts loading times:

Image by Ars Technica

Red Dead Redemption loads in 42 percent the time it took previously. Halo 5 loads 60 percent faster, while Ori is 3x faster. Borderlands 3 is nearly 4x faster. Even better, all of these games also show improvements when played from a USB 3.1 HDD, and the gains are still appreciable in every title. Keep in mind that these comparisons are against an Xbox One X — in every case where the Xbox One X is faster to load than the Xbox One/One S, the improvements would be commensurately larger.

My guess is that the improvements in USB 3.1 performance over the Xbox One X are related to the CPU. The interface itself should be running at the same speed. I’m not going to swear to it, but this test ought to be a very rough proxy for how moving from Jaguar to Zen 2 has improved storage performance.

Ars Technica includes some title-by-title analysis. PUBG is faster, but still struggles to maintain a 60 fps frame rate. GTA IV now runs at a rock-solid 6 fps, up from a wavering <50fps on XB1. Final Fantasy XV can hold a steady frame rate in 1080p “lite” unlocked mode, where the XB1 reportedly stuttered. Ars published a pair of screenshots that demonstrate the visual improvement from the XB1 to the XSX extremely well:

Xbox One crop to 1080p. Image by Ars Technica. Click to enlarge. Images best compared by opening each in a new window.

Xbox Series X crop. Image by Ars Technica. Images best compared by opening each in a separate window.

Meanwhile, over at VentureBeat, the reports are similar. Final Fantasy XV loads in 13 seconds. No Man’s Sky loads in 30 seconds, down from 79. Quick Resume allows you to leap from game to game in seconds, and it can hold multiple games simultaneously. Ars reports that it appears to be capable of juggling 10-12 older games and expects that number to be lower with new titles due to a larger NVMe footprint required to save their states. Currently, the console does not warn you when a title will be pushed out of Quick Resume, which hopefully will be addressed by future updates.

VentureBeat writes that copying games from external archive storage to the primary console is also fairly quick, and gives some benchmark times for the operations:

Data by VentureBeat

They’ve also posted performance graphs for multiple games, comparing direct fps performance from the XB1 to the XSX, one of which is below:

Both articles praise the machine while withholding final judgment for full reviews, but VentureBeat’s final paragraph captures opinions well:

Microsoft designed the Xbox Series X to address the shortcomings that developers and gamers have had to deal with since 2013. The weak CPU that has held back world design and simulation complexity. The old laptop-style hard drives that slowed down the interface and the games. And the I/O architecture that would bottleneck even an internal SSD. All of that is why I veered so hard into PC gaming in 2015, and I’m hoping that the launch of the Xbox Series X will enable us to bury those tired old machines.

Indeed. Sentiments like this are why I don’t buy the doom statements from organizations like DFC Intelligence, which has been sending me emails for months with subjects such as “Will Sony Win the Console War by default?” and “Microsoft Throws Hail Mary with Xbox Series S.” This is not to say that Microsoft will win the console war this generation — Sony comes into this fight with the enormous advantage of incumbency — but the Xbox Series X heads towards the ring in a vastly better position than the Xbox One occupied seven years ago.

Microsoft isn’t trying to sell gamers a weird hybrid box with motion controls, Big Brother concerns, and lower raw performance than the competition. The Xbox Series X has better and more complete backward compatibility than the PlayStation 5 and a larger GPU than the PlayStation 5. The PS5 has incumbency, PS4 backward compatibility, and VR support. Microsoft is also bracketing Sony’s pricing. The Xbox Series X is offering better hardware than the PS5 based on everything we know to date, but offering better hardware is not always key to winning the console war, or else the Xbox Series X would have become a runaway success for Microsoft post-launch.

Now Read:

Xbox Series X Pre-Orders Sold Out in Mere Hours

The Xbox Series X Will Crush an Equivalently Priced Gaming PC

New Xbox Series X SoC, GPU Details Revealed at Hot Chips 32

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/315580-early-xbox-series-x-tests-praise-ssd-backward-compatibility from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/09/early-xbox-series-x-tests-praise-ssd.html

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #78

“why are the children all marching into the desert to die?”

list your three favorite scents. lilac, uhhh and then cinnamon and coffee, maybe? how do you ground yourself or recharge? sleep, go online... comfort food? my #1 is definitely ice cream have you ever been on a laptop inside a vehicle? no while on the road, do you play any road games? not anymore are you scared of semi-trucks? especially when you’re driving next to one? AHHHH YES if you have any pets, do you talk to them in a baby voice?  hell yeah! do you like screamo music? i do not. i want to be able to understand the words. like, they can even be in different languages, i don't care, i just want to understand clear words. what is the relationship between you and the person you last kissed? much to my dismay, there isn't one. if you could change your name what would you change it to? zoey, probably. have you ever tried weed?  no, and i have no desire to. how much effort did you put into your last relationship? way, way, way too much. are you a patient person? NOPE. do you have impulse control? DOUBLE NOPE can you use chopsticks? my tremors would never allow it. do you like the smell of gasoline? NO NO NO NO NONONONONO did you ever live in a house with more than one story? nope what’s your favorite fast food place? bojangle's what's your favorite alcoholic drink? i haven't tried many, but the best thing i've had thus far was a watermelon margarita thing. have you ever given yourself a tattoo? no, and i wouldn't. i'm very serious about the professionalism of my tats. do you ever buy your pet(s) birthday or christmas presents? sure do! can you lick your nose?  nope. can you lick your elbow?  nope. would you rather watch a movie in theater or at home?  defs in theaters. do you still own any vhs tapes? do you ever watch them?  no, mom got rid of them all. what hobby have you always wanted to pick up?  hmmm. crafts. have you ever rolled off your bed in your sleep?  no. have you ever had a penpal?  nope. do you put your shirt on or your pants on first?  pants are you afraid of spiders?  only if they are venomous or have extremely long legs in comparison to their bodies. have you ever been stung by a bee?  i haven't. do you enjoy board games?  no. what do you like on your burgers? (cheese, ketchup, mustard..)  cheese, ketchup, mustard, onion pieces, pickles how much water do you drink each day?  none. do you enjoy mario games? not particularly, but with friends, sure. has the last person you kissed met your father? he has. what’s your favorite breed of dog? akita inus, chow chows, beagles... do you swear in front of your parents?  i'm totally open around my dad, but i usually don't say "fuck" around mom. what would you do if you found out you were pregnant to the last person you kissed?  cry and probably become obsessed with the child's well-being, even while in utero. can you make yourself cry? i can't. what do you tend to drink a lot of? milk have you ever woke up crying from a bad dream? yes, and i once woke up screaming. have you ever had to block anyone online? i've been actively using the internet since dial-up, whatcha think? are you scared of ending up alone? i'm legitimately horrified. are your pets asleep right now, if you have any?  i'm not at home, so idk. have you ever done three or more shots in a row? i've never done shots. favorite undersea creature? dolphins i think, but i also really like jellyfish and whales. seahorses, too. describe the darker side to your personality.  more than anything, i can be viciously jealous. i have an interior savagery, but just barely enough control to contain it. what makes a movie really enjoyable for you? creative, whimsical story and artwork, drama, and relatable characters. favorite type of bird? owls. favorite forest animal? deer! do you think you could ever have an abortion if you unexpectedly turned up pregnant right this second? absolutely not. what is your favorite video game console? why?  ps2 has the best games. do you like vanilla candles?  sure do. how many girlfriends/boyfriends have told you they love you? one, i think. juan might have... have you ever smoked a cigarette? no. who did you last share a taxi with? i've never been in one. do you vape? nope. do you enjoy the arctic monkeys?  i like two songs. where’s your favorite place to shop for clothes?  rebel's market. have you ever seen a mountain in person? i have. have you ever explored somewhere abandoned? i have. there's a shack and old house near my house that friends and i explored when i was younger. we got in trouble lol. have you ever found a four-leaf clover? i discovered a patch of four-leaf clovers the day after my dad left... (: would you rather live in a coastal town or a town closer to the forest? ohhh. can it be in the forest? are you lazy? i am, honestly. regularly burn incense? i used to. i need more sticks... who was your high school crush? i had a few. i was kinda interested in a guy named kyle, i really liked this boy sebastian, but my biggest crush was jason. are you cpr certified? no. who accompanied you to your first concert? mom, nicole, and jason. do you and your friends listen to similar music? depends on the friend. my best friend, no. do you believe in the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor? why or why not? no, because who says the rich don't deserve what they've accumulated? do you believe that animals are capable of “human” emotion? why not? it's very obvious that they feel emotion; now are their emotions the same as how we humans feel it, maybe not, but they obviously feel. who do you consider “family?” my mom, dad, ashley, nicole, katie, bobby, misty, a few aunts and uncles and uncles, colleen, chelsea, bradley, and despite having no relationship with him, jason will always be my family. could you sacrifice yourself for someone you barely knew? honestly, no. does the thought of having children scare you? horrifies me. i'd prefer to never imagine pushing a seven-pound human being out of my fucking vagina. xbox or playstation? playstation! have you ever asked someone out? i kinda-sorta initiated the asking out with aaron, but not exactly? when do you want to get married? i see 23 as an ideal marrying age, but there's literally no way that'll happen with me unless j comes back. did you like your middle school life? ACTUALLY fuck that. that's when my anxiety and depression started, and it was just... awkward and uncomfortable. have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to? yes and no... maybe. like, with jason, i thought to myself, "wow, he's really weird" when i met him, but at the same time, i found myself thinking, "this guy's gonna mean something." what’s your favorite zoo animal? meerkats, on the rare occasion they have them. do you have any plans for tomorrow? skating! :D what’s your favorite part about the fall? the colorful foliage, omg! which scooby-doo character are you most like (scooby, shaggy, daphne, fred, velma, the monster, scrappy?) probably scooby or shaggy. what “group” did you belong to in high school? i resonated/made friends with mostly the goths, emos, metalheads... describe your favorite pair of pj’s. a black pair of pajama pants with a design of harley quinn holding two guns sitting on her knees with "hey, puddin'" written beneath her. i usually wore them when i wanted j's dick honestly lmao. i still wear them tho honestly just 'cuz they're comfortable. if you could have any job in the world, which one would you want? meerkat biologist OR a member of the mythical crew how did you learn to ride a bicycle? my dad taught me. (: have you ever been to a sports game? hockey, yes. have you seen all the shrek movies? no and i cry every night because of it. have you ever finished a whole video game? of course do you know anyone with a pet snake? currently, i don't believe so. your parents split; would you want to live with your mom or dad? they did split, and i live(d) with my mom. how does it make you feel looking at pics with your ex and someone else? i've seen one picture of him with his current girlfriend, and i legitimately wanted to murder the bitch. no exaggeration. have you ever slept in the same bed as your friend? multiple times. what is on your bed right now? well, my own bed is in storage right now to my understanding, but the bed i'm using at colleen's currently just had pillows and blankets. are you someone’s best friend? i am! :D what do you think of when you think of australia? my friend shaylee ever ridden on a roller coaster? no, too scared. what is your birthstone? amethyst is anyone jealous of you? literally no reason to ever be. do any of your friends have children? not any close friends how did you get one of your scars? i scratched the fuck out of my leg. it was overly itchy. honestly, what is your point of a view of a friend who goes for their friend’s exes? consult your friend about it. when was the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe? when playing "cards against humanity" with colleen, chelsea, and bradley would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum? zoo! do you sleep with a night light? no. do you bite your toenails? nope. what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime? overall, i feel most connected to otep's lyrics. have you ever gone to the person you like’s best friend to help you out? no. who is the most blunt person that you know? colleen do you think you will be going to sleep soon? i might take a nap. what nervous habits do you have? my eyes dart, i play with/knead my hands, avoid eye contact, etc. when was the last time you were hit on by someone? i'm not sure. what is your ringtones on your cellular? "telescope" by starset do you wear makeup? rarely. do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? nope. what is your pet’s name? the only pet i personally "own" is teddy, a beagle-cocker spaniel mix. do you have any siblings? do you get along? my two immediate siblings are ashley and nicole. what is your favorite color? maroon. what color are your eyes? blue do you like your parents? i love them. how long does it take you to shower? like 8 minutes. is the last person you kissed older than you? by two years name everyone you kissed this year: no one is it awkward when you run into your ex’s? i've never "run into" him. i've seen him once, but it wasn't awkward honestly. have you ever fallen asleep with the last person you kissed? probably hundreds of times... do you change your phone background a lot? nope. think back to your last relationship. was it worth it? yes, it was. has anyone seen you in your underwear, other than mom? yep. do you hate being the first person to start a conversation? sure do. if you had to live off one type of fruit, which would you pick? strawberries what do you usually order from olive garden? spicy shrimp fritas. fucking perfection. how do you like your steak cooked? well done do you know anyone who self-harms? i know people who have, but i certainly hope they still don't. do you have any siblings? what are their names, age, and grade they are in? doing immediate siblings only. ashley: she's 24, i think, and she's graduated. nicole: she's 18 and is a freshman in college. do you know a schizophrenic person? yes. my own half-sister tiffany is a schizophrenic. do you own many pairs of shorts? i don't have any. is there a certain song you like to headbang to?  surprisingly, i don't headbang. is there a band/artist who has strange lyrics but you love them anyway?  rammstein's lyrics are rather different imo did you love playing hide and seek as a kid?  i really did! do you have a favorite font on the computer?  garamond, i assume. have you ever been severely burned?  nope. did you ever dream that you had a baby?  multiple times. what was the weirdest thing you ever saw cross the road?  hm, not sure... do you try clothes on before you buy them? i avoid that shit like the plague, but i guess if i have to. by society's standards, are you attractive? probably not, idk? mostly because i'm fat, so. i do have clear skin though? would you let your kid smoke weed? if i found my child smoking weed, that would probably be the closest i'd ever get to beating their fucking ass, to be frank about it. are you mentally stable? "no" should be the obvious answer. do you think marijuana is safer than alcohol? in some ways, sure. what do you hear right now? "the dope show" by marilyn manson, chelsea talking in her room... have you ever been in an abusive relationship? no. what color is your favorite bra? it's mostly baby pink, but has a black, swirly design on it. which would you rather have, a new puppy or kitten? i'd actually quite enjoy a kitten right now. if you could have one power, what would it be? shape-shifting. would you ever date out of your own race?   yeah. do you still watch movies intended for children?   every now and again. who is your favorite stand-up comedian?   john pinette. what is your strangest phobia?   whale sharks. what is the most pointless movie that you have ever seen?   "the purge."  just the concept of it was so stupid.  i mean, the film was okay, but still pointless. have you ever kissed someone of the same gender as you?   romantically, no. when a bee is coming close to you, do you stand still or run away?   depends on the kind of bee.  ex., wasp, i'm running.  honeybee, it's cool. are you self conscious about wearing a bathing suit?   very, yes. if you had to play one sport for a living, what would it be?   dance. have your parents ever thought you were gay? what happened?   i don't think so, no. what’s the best thing to eat for breakfast?   pancakes are your parents more liberal or conservative?   conservative, mostly, with some liberal views. when was the last time you saw your best friend?   this morning.  i am currently living with her; she's at work atm. how many jobs have you ever had? (including things like babysitting)   two. do you have family meals when it’s someones birthday?   we go out to eat somewhere nice-ish. are you comfortable talking to both your parents about sex and boys?   mom, sure, but i would never discuss sex with dad. have you ever wanted to be a teacher?   not at all. what do you think is overrated?   i don't really call things "overrated."  well-liked things are liked for a reason. what is underrated?   the band otep.  they should really be better known. can spiders jump?   yes, they can. there was a sculpture that was supposed to be displayed for a week in the rockefeller center in nyc of a falling woman - designed as a memorial to those who jumped or fell to their death from the world trade center. it was complained about as grotesque, inappropriate and describe as 'not art.’ what do you think?   who says something grotesque cannot be art?  it was absolutely art and carried with it a heavy message.  it shouldn't have been censored by not showing it. has anyone ever mistaken you for a satanist?   with my wardrobe, probably. what did you see today that was beautiful in an ordinary way?   i saw my best friend. are you dyslexic?   no sir. do you agree with the people who say that everyone is bi-sexual even if they don’t want to admit it?   heard that before, and it's bullshit. if you are the only human on the planet of the apes do you have sex with an ape?   ugh, no. do you believe that black people should get money to make up for their previous enslavement?   ... the fuck is this?  no???  look, i am in no way racist or anything, but there is no reason to pay african americans because of past mistreatment?  like, that shit's done and over with? have you ever tried to write poetry or song lyrics?   poetry, yeah. do you like men who have a sensitive side?   it's like.  mandatory for me. dangly earrings, hoop earrings, simple studs, or no earrings at all?   hmmm, studs. would you ever wear black lipstick? do you know anyone who does?   i do sometimes. do you lecture people about drugs?   if one prompts me too, yes. if you could pick the temperature of the outdoors for the rest of your life, what would it be?   like... 49, maybe? who was the last person to call you babe?   probably colleen, potentially juan. do you have family problems?   yes. were you smiling when you woke up this morning?   who the fuck just wakes up smiling? do you like being in pictures?   while it's great to be included, i only really like it if i'm taking the picture, 'cuz i know how to flatter my face. do you sneak out?   at 21, i can't exactly "sneak out," but when i was a teenager, no, i never did. how would you spend a day at the beach?   in the ocean have you ever experienced altitude sickness?   nope. do you ever make a big deal out of nothing?  only constantly. have you ever written anything on a bathroom stall?  nope. are your hands unsteady?   yes, i have an essential tremor. are you scared of moving on?  FUCKING HORRIFIED. when talking on the phone, do you place it against your left or right ear?   right ear are you scared you’ll get a q-tip stuck inside your ear?   nope. do you use index cards to help you prepare for tests?   i never did. what’s your favorite flavor of sunflower seeds?   i don't like sunflower seeds. what's currently on your mind?   meh.  i feel... alone and unaccomplished.  i just found out a veeery old friend of mine is moving out with her girlfriend soon, and.  idk.  seeing her grow up like that makes me jealous.  i miss having another half, okay? what’s your favorite hairstyle on a guy?   kill me pls, bc i like emo/scene hair the most ;-; what color is your hairbrush?   hot pink have you ever dated someone with curly hair?   not full-blown curly, no.  very few of j's tips would be curly, but his hair overall was more wavy. how many of the people you’ve kissed have had brown eyes?   one. what’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to the person you like?   "i love you." are you currently in a “i wouldn’t mind if i lost 50 pounds” kind of mood?   losing 50 pounds would honestly be spectacular. are your parents religious?   yeah. would you like to have twins?   fuck no. if your best friend liked your last ex, what would you do?   oh, i'd tell her off. want to have kids before you’re 30?   it'd be ideal. has someone ever made a promise to you and broke it?   sure has. would you ever date anyone covered in tattoos?   sure. do you feel more comfortable with a male or female doctor/nurse?   female. are you interested in more than one person at the moment?   nope.

[gracieisnotmuchofawriter]

Process of Getting Closer II

I don’t know what Jude is, they’re a person I like and that’s all that matters, fuck it.

  It’s the first weekend I haven’t taken my painkillers since school started. The loneliness can leave me paralyzed and wanting to just get away. But Jude is helping a lot, even if they don’t know it, and even if it’s just the first weekend of knowing them.

  Today, we decided to sit outside at this bench just outside of the resident building. We got food from a Taco Bell from down the street, what we ate is irrelevant, but we sat at the bench, the sun setting in front of us. Everything from cars to kids to the architecture shined red and orange, the sky was a washed out blue from the brightness of the sun.

  It was another humid day, the guys and the girls walked around in tank tops, denim shorts, and basketball shorts. Some kids from network administration wore khaki shorts with their polo shirts tucked all the way in. Then you have the few chubbier guys wearing whole ass sweaters, I can relate kinda, I mean, I was wearing a very thin shawl-cardigan-like-thingy even though the air was so fucking thick. Then the amazing, top-notch goth girl in our classes wore a black sweater with a design she made herself, skinny jeans with fishnets visible from the torn slits at the sides. She’s also a ginger. She said hi to us when she went into the resident hall.

  “So what do you think of college?” Jude asked, they take a sip of their drink, looking at me through squinted eyes.

  “It’s okay, I really like how quiet it gets compared to my house, but then I also hate it.” My house isn’t loud per se, it’s just someone’s always up, doing something. I think I’m just used to the noise.

  “You just used to the noise?” They ask, seemingly reading my mind.

  “Yeah, I try to sleep with my computer on, but I’m afraid I’m gonna break it from doing that.” I say, the time my Xbox’s fans stopped cooling everything ran through my head.

  “My roommate has an unopened thirty-two inch for sale, she only wants like seventy bucks.” They said, but I was more interested in something else, “Okay, maybe saying ‘ONLY’ is a bit much considering it’s still seventy dollars and we’re broke college kids.”

  “So your roommates a girl?” I ask, hoping to find an answer.

  “Yeah, they accepted my application late since I wanted to be an RA, or a resident assistant. I got accepted to be one so they just put me up in the last available RA unit. It just happened to be with girls.” Jude shrugs, they take a bite of their food.

  “Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, a little irresponsible?” I said, taking a drink of my teal sugar water.

  “Yeah, I guess, but I got a bedroom and a bathroom all to myself, I mean, you saw it, would you care if you had all that?” They say with a shrug.

  “You’re right, what’s it like being an RA?” I ask, Jude’s face turns a bright, intense orange as the evening slips away.

  “Looking forward to having no debt at the end of this, but honestly, I wish the school didn’t have a three-strike rule when students get locked out of their dorms. It gets really boring sometimes.” Jude says, taking another sip from their drink.

  “See anything bad happen?” I asked, long forgotten are the basis of Jude’s sex.

  “Like a woman getting roofied or whatever? Nah, guys around here are good boys, thank God.” Jude takes another bite, “Though, I do know some guys around here have anger problems.

   “Apparently, every summer they have to repair some drywall that was sunken in.” Jude shrugs, sipping on her drink.

  “So how are you roommates? Anyone giving you any problems or what’s up? I’m bored.” Jude says as they turn to me, the shadows become sharp and defined from the waning golden hour.

  “Asha forgets her keys a lot...” I say, last weekend, both Saturday and Sunday she called me to let her in after she got off work.

  “Asha? Asha Torres?” Jude says, their voice is filled with curiosity and wonder, I nod at them.

  “Asha paid that third strike fine three times already.” Jude says chuckling.

  “She has a job, so it’s probably no big deal to her, or at least until last weekend.” I say, remembering my food, I take a bite and sip of my fizzy syrup.

  “What does she study?” Jude asked, the orange glow still shimmered off of their face.

  “Hospitality management I think? I don’t know, she’s really into customer service for some reason.” I say, I start passively sipping on my pop, my blood thickens like a model after she makes it big.

  “Explains why she’s so cordial, where does she work?” Jude asks.

  “Hostel One? It’s by the storage place in the Commons, I think.” I say, visualizing the hotel when her and I went to the mall, before my dependency started.

  After a while, the air wasn’t so heavy anymore, the breeze was cool and it made my armpits and boobs less sticky. My face still felt like a grilled cheese sandwich, though. Jude’s face still glowed in the twilight, they were really pretty and handsome. I was exhausted though, my cravings were getting bad, my leg started bouncing and I felt that empty frustration in my stomach. I put my head back in the bench, my hair hung off the back. A gnawing question started to eat away at the back of my neck.

  “Are you gay?” I ask, in a way I regretted it, it felt like it wasn’t any of my business, but then how do you talk about your roommates for an entire weekend?

  “I like how vague the term queer is these days, I fool around with anyone I fancy.” They say matter-of-fact-ly.

  “I thought it was mean to call someone that.” I said as I counted the stars that came into view above me.

  “Not anymore, it’s a word that’s kind of been saved by queers like me.” Jude says, snickering.

  I giggle a bit, they join me, I look over at them and they sit back, same as me, our eyes meet. ‘This feeling is amazing.’ I think.

  “So what kinda genitals are you into?” Jude says, their smile seems genuine, but teasing.

  “Big ones, small ones, innies.” I start giggling again, Jude snickers before they burst into an intense giggle fit.

   “What a way to say vagina.” Jude says, their voice trailing off.

   “I don’t really know what I like, to be honest.” I clarify. There weren’t a lot of people I liked that way in high school, maybe just one person.

   “That’s fine, anyone you crush on in high school or maybe here?” Jude asks, I had a feeling that they were fishing for me to respond positively, but then I don’t really know.

   “I had a bit of relationship develop with this one guy in my choir class.” I think back to this time, before I broke my ankle, before I was prescribed quick-release Oxycodone, before now.

   “He was just a very gentle guy, in a school where most guys were kinda abrasive and annoying, he seemed different.” I say, thinking back to that messy red hair, that sharp jawline, those freckles.

   “We met at this rehearsal, he was a baritone bass, I was a mezzo soprano, it was a team-building exercise to help us find the same notes.” The trees that line the sidewalk rustle in the mild breeze, leaves fall to the ground, sliding across the concrete, I continue,

   “To keep it short, the teacher wasn’t happy with the fact that we both were just mouthing the songs, she also didn’t like that we laughed when we realized we were both doing it.” I chuckle, the choir teacher was incredibly pale. Watching her chest and cheeks and forehead turn the color of a tomato was great.

   “Then—“ I don’t want Jude to know how hurt I still am, “he moved to a different city, all of his friends and I lost touch with him.” I didn’t want to tell Jude the part where he kept texting his friends, talking to them on this community-builder app called Discord or whatever. When his friends found out he hadn’t talked to me since he left—it had been a year at that point—they started to ignore him. I’m not really sure if they actually did, though.

   “You miss him, don’t you?” Jude asks, their voice is gentle, understanding even.

   “I miss everyone I lost touch with.” I turn my head, looking at Jude’s handsome face. A thought barged into my head as I sat there watching them. ‘What’s stopping them from doing the same?’ I try to ignore it, but Jude’s interest reminds me of Robin, they almost look and dress the same, if Robin had white hair, bigger eyes and fuller lips, Jesus they could be twins.

   “You know too much now, I think I have to kill you.” My voice is soft and frank, I look at them with puckered lips and I hope my eyes were puppy-like enough.

   Jude’s face crinkles up into laughter. I join them.

I have a canvas next to my desk, I used stencils I bought at Michael’s when I learned about Ed Ruscha last month. I did a drip painting on another square of canvas. It was a layered monstrosity of browns, blacks, dark greens and white. I grabbed a silver marker and began coloring the stencils. In Futura Bold, all it said was, “Jude Is Temporary”.

   The thoughts of Jude leaving my life was already unbearable. As the time between when we picked up and went back to our rooms to now, all I can think of is that pill bottle. It said ‘Take (1) as needed’, but I haven’t been listening lately. I tried distracting myself from the horrid thought of Jude getting tired of me, but it was strangling me. It even informed what was supposed to be a comforting message. I just really need a way to get out of this headspace. I contemplate calling my aunt and asking to come home for a few days, just so I would be out of the way of my painkillers. I thought about walking up to her, hugging her and telling her I’m sorry for disappointing her so much. Then I’d confess to abusing my painkillers.

   “Hey Amber, wanna go out and get dinner—, that’s fucking cool.” Asha says, pointing at my painting.

Amber

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

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Anker’s original SoundBuds are your favorite affordable wireless earbuds, but the newer SoundBuds Tag just got their biggest discount ever. $18 is $12 less than usual, and the best price we’ve ever seen.

Your Pick For Best Cheap Bluetooth Earbuds: Anker SoundBuds

Anker’s SoundBuds blew away the competition to take the title of your favorite cheap Bluetooth…

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The Tags basically appear to be a slightly tweaked version of the SoundBuds Sport, boasting a redesigned remote and better ear tips. Like the Sports though, they’ll still turn off when you connect the two magnetic earpieces together, and turn back on once you pull them apart. Smart.

$18

From amazonUse code ANKX3232

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If you’ve been curious to try computer glasses, but were scared off by the sky-high price of Gunnars, Velocifire will sell you a set for $17 today with promo code 7DFJQSKQ If you aren’t familiar, the appeal of these things is that they block out the blue light that emanates from the screens we stare at all day, which can cause eyestrain, headaches, and even insomnia.

$17

From amazonUse code 7DFJQSKQ

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This Belkin surge protector is one of our readers’ favorites, and Prime members can save 20% on it today, bringing it down to $16. If you haven’t replaced your main home theater or home office surge protector I several years, it might be time.

$16

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These Are The Best Home Theater Surge Protectors

After some charged debate in this week’s nomination round, three models surged past the competition …

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Why You Should Periodically Replace Your Surge Protectors

A decent surge protector is an important piece of equipment in any office or entertainment center. …

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Top Home Deals

Standing desks are great for you, but working standing on a balance board while you work is even better. This one from Gaiam is designed specifically for standing desks, and it’s never been cheaper.

$40

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With a locking lid, this 6-quart Crock-Pot is ultra-portable and can serve up to 7 people, all for $39. You can even program it start cooking while you’re away at work so you can come home to a warm meal.

$39

From amazon

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We’ve all had to throw away leftovers or cuts of meat and cheese that spent a little too much time in the fridge or freezer, but vacuum sealing your foods can keep them safe from freezer burn pretty much indefinitely, and dramatically extend their shelf life everywhere else.

It sounds like an expensive proposition, but today only, Amazon’s selling the well-reviewed FoodSaver Starter Kit for just $30, complete with everything you need to get started. That’s the best price ever by over $15, and the first time it’s been under $50 on Amazon since 2012.

Of course, you can use this to store meats in the freezer for a long time, but it can also keep cheese from molding, lettuce from wilting, or cookies from going stale, just to name a few examples. Think about how much food you throw away, and you’ll get a sense of just how quickly this purchase could pay for itself.

$30

From amazon

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Woot has run a few deals over the last few months on YETI soft-sided coolers, but today, you can get a very rare deal on the rugged Roadie 20 hard-sided cooler. This thing can keep ice frozen for days on end, even once it finally gets warm outside again. Accounting for Woot’s mandatory $5 shipping fee, this is still $55 cheaper than Amazon.

I didn’t give much thought to my dish rack until I went to my mom’s house and she had this simplehuman beauty. It’s a small thing, but it looks so much nicer than the flimsy $15 ones you can buy at the grocery store and it is incredibly functional.

This product was missing from simplehuman’s Black Friday sale and discounts on anything related to this brand are rare, so today is the day to get this normally-$80 dish rack for $62.

$62

From amazon

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Is bringing your lunch to work more often part of your New Year’s resolution? Pick up this 9-liter lunch box for just $15 when you enter code MAMWWB9S at checkout.

$15

From amazonUse code MAMWWB9S

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If you’ve been putting off replacing your wiper blades for far too long, Amazon’s throwing in a $5 credit when you purchase any two Rain-X Latitude blades, from now until the New Year. Just note that the credit is towards your next Amazon purchase, it’s not a discount on the blades themselves. You’ll also need to be sure both of the blades you buy are shipped and sold by Amazon directly, not a third party.

Electric kettles are hands-down the most efficient way to boil water. This normally-$40 Aicok electric kettle is selling for $29 today with code PRYSU8YB. It has 6 different temperature settings for various beverages from green tea to hot cocoa and noodles.

$29

From amazonUse code PRYSU8YB

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Extra bedding takes up way too much room. Pack it all up in this canvas underbed storage bag, just $12 with code FGQO3GZC and when you clip the $2 off coupon.

$12

From amazonUse code FGQO3GZC

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Top Lifestyle Deals

Note: This deal ends on January 1, so get your orders in now.

Yes, it’s already happening again. Nordstrom Rack has brought back their Clear the Rack sale and it’s full (and I mean FULL) of really incredible deals. Designer clothing, brands you’ve never heard of, everything in clearance an extra 25% off. This lasts through Sunday, so you have a good amount of time to pick up some discounts.

If you’re enough of a daredevil to give yourself a haircut, Remington’s Shortcut Pro makes the process as simple as possible.

For an all-time low $28 (after clipping the $10 coupon), the Shortcut Pro can run for 40 minutes on its built-in lithium-ion battery, and includes nine different length combs to customize your look. And unlike most electric trimmers, it’s shaped like a puck, rather than a wand, which makes it much easier to maneuver around the back of your own head. Just note that you won’t see the $10 discount until checkout.

$28

From amazon

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I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but for most of the country, it’s cold outside. Like, way too cold. Luckily, Uniqlo’s running another sale on its awesome HeatTech gear for both men and women.

Eddie Bauer makes great stuff all year ‘round, but their wares really shine in the winter, and you can stock up on coats, pants, boots, and pretty much everything else from their semi-annual sale, including a rare deal on the iconic Downlight Stormdown jacket for men and women, which can keep you warm in temperatures well below zero.

I’m pretty sure I could spend every day of the next three months in long johns, and with this 30% off Amazon coupon, I could probably afford to. Choose from multiple sizes and colors, all for about $8 at checkout.

The Philips Norelco Multigroom is actually a ton of shaving tools in one: A beard trimmer, a hair cutter, and a body groomer. $20 gets you the trimmer, 13 length combs, a precision trimming attachment, a nose hair trimmer, a wide hair-cutting blade, and more. Oh, and the whole thing runs for up to three hours on a charge, so you won’t have to travel with the charger.

$20

From amazon

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Nordstrom has three large sales each year: The Anniversary Sale and two Half-Yearly Sales. Well, this week marks the end of the second half of the year, so Nordstrom is taking up to 50% off a boatload of styles. It’ll take time to look through all the stuff, so maybe pencil it in as a meeting at work or pretend you’re in the bathroom and avoid your family or something.

When it comes to having a corner on the market, nothing really compares to Nike. And right now, take an extra 25% off their sale styles for both men and women, no code needed, as post-holdiday deal. Everything you could need for a good workout wardrobe is included, from apparel, to sneakers, to gear.

Note: If you don’t see the discount, try using promo code WINTER25, which is how this deal was supposed to work.

Top Media Deals

Amazon hasn’t been shy about offering up discounted Kindle books over the past week, but I suspect that the New Year will see a significant slowdown in sales, back to a more typical ~once per week schedule. Today’s sale has some great options though, a few of which we highlighted below. But be sure to head over to Amazon to see the full list.

$4

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$3

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$4

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$2

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the greatest work in the history of filmmaking that included a killer rabbit, and its 40th anniversary Blu-ray is just $5 today as an Add-On item on Amazon. I’m not sure if they’ll string it between a couple of swallows to get it to you faster, but it should arrive before Christmas if you have Prime, in any event.

$5

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Amazon’s waving its discount wand on the Harry Potter franchise, with all eight Hogwarts-centric films on sale for just $7 digitally.

Top Gaming Deals

If you’re lucky enough to have gotten your hands on the SNES Classic, this $17 case makes it easy to bring to a friend’s house for a night of Mario Kart.

$17

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It’s not as advanced as a Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift, but if you have a smartphone and $17, you can experience VR with this View-Master Deluxe VR starter set. The View-Master is actually just a Google Cardboard-compatible VR headset, except, you know, it’s not made of cardboard, even if it’s priced like it could be.

$17

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If you missed out on all of the PS4 Pro deals around Black Friday, you have another chance to save $50 on the console today on eBay. Just note that it doesn’t come with any bundled games.

Should You Buy A PS4 Pro?

Short version: The new PS4 Pro is a more powerful version of an already good console. We like the…

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[ramialkarmi]

11 reasons why now is the perfect time to buy a Nintendo Switch

Nintendo's new console is off to a strong start: The Switch is already Nintendo's fastest-selling game console.

Like so many things, its success comes as a surprise to experts in the field — the $299 console isn't very competitive on paper, and it wasn't a guaranteed success in concept:

It's underpowered compared with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, both of which cost less.

It has a paltry game library compared with the competition.

Because of its lack of horsepower, major games released on multiple platforms — think "Assassin's Creed," "Call of Duty," "Grand Theft Auto," etc. — won't ever come to the Switch.

But using the Switch is a surprising delight, and 2017 has been a year full of huge hits for the console. And now, on the verge of a brand new Mario game launch, it's a better time than ever to buy the Switch. Here's why:

SEE ALSO: 16 reasons why now is the perfect time to buy a PlayStation 4

DON'T MISS: 16 reasons why now is the perfect time to buy an Xbox One

1. The Nintendo Switch is remarkably fast, which is more important than you'd think.

Using the Switch feels blessedly modern.

Unlike the often sludgy experience on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, powering up and using the Switch is quick and easy. At any moment in a game, you can push the console's home button and immediately exit to the dashboard. This concept also exists on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but it's far quicker and more seamless on the Switch.

Frankly speaking, it doesn't feel like a technological downgrade from the smartphone in my pocket. Even the user interface is clean and efficient — no digging through sub-menus to turn off WiFi or see how much storage I'm using. It's this kind of "quality of life" stuff that makes using the Switch intuitive and accessible to pretty much any user.

2. Sleep Mode turns the Switch into a game console that's quickly accessible.

A major reason people are inclined to play games on their phones is ease of use. A phone is already in your pocket and takes just a second to wake up, which lets you get in and out of apps and games quickly. The Switch takes this concept to heart with Sleep Mode, which enables the console to operate like, say, a laptop or a tablet.

Rather than turning the console all the way off, you can enter Sleep Mode: a low-power mode that enables the console to be quickly accessed later, comparable to reopening a laptop screen. No restarting the game — you're back exactly where you left off.

Though there are comparable functions on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the Switch pulls it off much more cleanly — a nod to the portability of the console.

3. Jumping into games, in general, is surprisingly fast.

I take a ton of screenshots on the Switch, and getting them off the Switch requires removing the microSD card I put in the console. And every time I remove the microSD card, I have to power the Switch all the way down. Bummer!

Thankfully, restarting the Switch — even a "cold boot," as it's known — is remarkably quick. I just tested: It takes roughly 10 seconds from all the way off to the main menu. I'd bet any amount of money that it's faster than the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

This quickness is due partially to the design of the hardware itself and partially to the medium used for games: cartridges. In both instances, Nintendo smartly prioritized the consumer experience — and it makes a difference in daily use.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

[componentplanet]

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X Just Ended the PC-Console War

On December 12, 2019, Microsoft announced the Xbox Series X, its next-generation game console. One of the major features of this new console is full backward-compatibility with the previous generation. Your titles will transfer. Xbox One controllers will work with the Xbox Series X, and Series X controllers will work with the Xbox One. All of this will arrive on Day 1, out of the box.

With that announcement, Microsoft bridged the last fundamental gap between PC and console gaming. On the PC, we don’t talk about “generations” the same way that the console market does. The closest thing to a generation in the PC space is a Direct3D version, but the two have never been equivalent — modern PC games use a variety of APIs, including DirectX 11, DirectX 12, and Vulkan. Instead, we use touchstones like when a game came out relative to when a person bought their PC or graphics card. The reason we don’t talk about “generations” is that PCs have remained more-or-less backward-compatible with decades of software. The majority of PC titles from the past 15 years will still run on modern systems, but that same time period refers to at least three different console generations.

Going forward, with the Series family, Microsoft will have one kind of game — an “Xbox” game. If you own a Series system, you’ll have full access to the company’s library of past and present titles. From the way Microsoft is talking, it intends to make this a standard feature going forward. If cloud streaming services like Project XCloud ever get off the ground, Microsoft could theoretically use game streaming to provide forward compatibility, allowing, say, an Xbox One S to stream and play titles that were intended to run natively on an Xbox Series X.

Xcloud streaming Forza to an Android device in a Microsoft demo.

Up until now, this kind of nearly-seamless backwards compatibility was still largely unique to the PC market. Yes, backward compatibility has existed on consoles before, but it existed in a distinctly limited form. If you were a Sony gamer, backward compatibility was something you got early in the PS3 generation or not at all (as far as the PS4 emulating the PS3). Microsoft has done much more to support backward compatibility on the Xbox One, but it’s still a feature that the company added and expanded over time, not something that was baked-in guaranteed on Day One, and it’s been announced game-by-game. What Microsoft is describing for the Xbox Series X is something much more akin to what PC users have historically enjoyed. When you consider how PC-like consoles now are internally, the differences between the two platforms have all-but vanished — at least, as far as their intrinsic capabilities are concerned.

Towards a Common Platform

If you look back across the decades, PCs and consoles have been inching closer to each other for a very long time. In the SNES era, consoles had specialized audio and video capabilities adapted to their function that dwarfed the generic capabilities of an equivalent IBM-compatible PC. Even after the PlayStation adopted CD-ROMs, the PS1 didn’t run anything like the operating system you would have found on a Windows 95 machine of equivalent vintage. There were arcade game ports for PC from the dawn of gaming, but it wasn’t until the combined advent of 3D graphics cards and CD-ROM drives that we started to see serious efforts to port console games to PC or vice-versa. It also wasn’t unusual for these ports to be unplayable unless you owned an extremely specific combination of hardware (ask anyone who tried running the original PC version of Final Fantasy VII on anything but a 3dfx card how much fun they had with it).

The PS4 runs Orbis OS, a fork of FreeBSD 9.0.

Over time, console capabilities expanded as well. Both the PS2 and PS3 could run Linux. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 were both IBM projects derived in part from PowerPC, Sony and Microsoft now use the x86 architecture, just like a PC. The graphics chips inside both upcoming consoles are built by AMD and based on the RDNA architecture. The Xbox uses a special variant of Windows 10 and it supports keyboard and mouse input on compatible games. At the OS level, the Xbox One is a PC that happens to use a controller and can only run a restricted set of applications. Meanwhile, you can stream Xbox One games to a PC, use an Xbox controller on a PC, or hook PC peripherals up to an Xbox One for gaming.

What About Upgrading?

Upgradability used to be a major distinguishing factor between consoles and PCs, but the last few years have seen the collapse of this onetime bulwark. The value of upgradability isn’t simply the ability to purchase faster hardware — it’s knowing that all of the software you previously purchased will work at least as well or better than it did before. Offering the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X as upgrades to the PS4 and Xbox One made those consoles upgradeable from within their own generation, but that wasn’t enough to match PCs — after all, I can play games I literally bought 20 years ago off their original installation media, if I have a mind to and the discs still work.

But if future versions of Xbox are guaranteed to be compatible with past versions of Xbox, Microsoft just locked in the upgradability angle. It’s not literally the same type of modular component replacement you can do with a PC, but an Xbox One S owner today can look forward to playing all of the games they own right now at higher detail and quality levels on an Xbox X Series they plan to purchase in 2020. If we can talk about “upgrading” an iPhone, we can now talk about “upgrading” a console, and another major distinction between the PC and console ecosystems just disappeared.

Consoles and PCs Now Differ Solely by Degree, Not Type

I am not arguing that the Xbox Series X has literally eliminated all differences between PCs and console gaming. Console games have their own unique design tendencies, some of which are rooted in old physical distinctions between the two platforms. Computer games, for example, integrated the idea of “Save early, save often” from the very beginning because they were distributed on rewritable media. Gamers were encouraged to keep more than one save file to guard against data corruption or accidentally overwriting the only copy.

Console games added the ability to save more slowly and often restricted the player to one save slot per playthrough. While modern games use a wide range of save styles, checkpoints and limited save slots are still associated more with console games. There’s no reason for this to be true — modern consoles have enough storage to allow for as much saving as the player wants — but it is. Similarly, modern PCs support controllers, but most PC gamers still use mouse and keyboard.

I was doing this when the “mouse” part of “mouse and keyboard” was optional. Image courtesy of Rock Paper Shotgun

But when I started gaming, nearly 33 years ago, there were games on consoles that PCs could not match and games on PCs that consoles literally could not run. Today, those gaps have been eliminated. 30 years ago, you couldn’t use an NES controller on an IBM PC even if you wanted to. Today there are console games with mouse and keyboard support and PC titles with controller support.

It’s no accident that Microsoft is bending over backward to allow game streaming from game console to PC and vice-versa. As far as Microsoft’s concerned, “PC” and “console” are two different methods people have of enjoying the same fundamental types of content. If streaming services take off, even the question of forwards compatibility becomes less important — the Xbox Series X you buy in 2020 may be capable of playing games intended for its successor, eight years later, via whatever Project XCloud turns into. That’s conjecture on my part, but it’s not crazy, the entire point of game streaming services is to turn low-end hardware into gaming Nirvana provided you’ve got an appropriately fast connection. Whether this will actually happen is an open question, but it’s clearly where Microsoft is trying to go. Even advanced features like Adaptive Sync are now baked-in on consoles.

The Xbox Series X didn’t “win” the PC-console war in the traditional sense. The Xbox Series X is the end result of decades of PC-console convergence.

Now Read:

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X: Definitely More X’s Than the Leading Competitive Brand

Why the PlayStation 4 Triumphed Over the Xbox One

Microsoft Launches New Xbox All Access Plan, Offers Next-Gen Upgrade

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/303446-microsofts-xbox-series-x-just-ended-the-pc-console-war from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/12/microsofts-xbox-series-x-just-ended-pc.html

[soukacatv]

What is HEVC H.265 Video, and Why is It So Important for 4K Movies? | Soukacatv.com

4K is the next big thing in TVs, and 4K videos are starting to pop up everywhere. But 4K video takes up a ton of space, which makes it hard to download and stream in the best quality possible. Thankfully, one technology is changing that, and it’s known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), or H.265.

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It’s taking a while for this new technology to become ubiquitous, but it’s happening - 4K UHD Blue-rays use HEVC, VLC 3.0 makes HEVC and 4K videos more watchable on your PC, and the iPhone can even save recorded video in HEVC to save storage space. But how does it work, and why is it so important for 4K video?

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The Current Standard: AVC/H.264

When you watch a Blu-ray disc, a YouTube video, or a movie from iTunes, it isn’t identical to the original raw video that comes out of the editing room. In order to fit that movie on a Blu-ray disc - or make it small enough to comfortably download from the web - the movie has to be compressed.

Advanced Video Coding, also known as AVC or H.264, is the best standard for video compression in widespread use, and there are a few different methods it uses to try to reduce the file size of your video.

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For example, in any given frame, it can look for areas that are mostly the same color. Take this still frame of me and my son - much of the sky is the same color blue, so the compression algorithm can split the image up in to chunks - called “macroblocks”- and say “hey, instead of remembering the color of each pixel, we can just say that all of these chunks along the top are the same color blue.” That’s a lot more efficient than storing the color of each individual pixel, which lowers the file size of the final frame. In video, this is called intra-frame compression - compressing the data of an individual frame.

AVC also uses inter-frame compression, which looks at multiple frames and notes which parts of the frame are changing - and which aren’t. Take this shot from Captain America: Civil War. The background doesn’t change much - most of the difference between frames is in Iron Man’s face and body. So, the compression algorithm can split the frame up into those same macroblock chunks and say “you know what? These chunks don’t change for 100 frames, so let’s just display them again instead of storing the entire image 100 times.” This can reduce file size dramatically.

These are just two over-simplified examples of the methods AVC/H.264 uses, but you get the idea. It’s all about making the video file more efficient without compromising quality. (Of course, any video will lose quality if you compress it too much, but the smarter these techniques are, the more you can compress a video before getting to that point.)

HEVC/H.265 Compresses Videos More Efficiently, Perfect for 4K Video

High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as HEVC or H.265, is the next step in this evolution. It builds off a lot of the techniques used in AVC/H.264 to make video compression even more efficient.

For example, when AVC looks at multiple frames for changes - like the Captain America example above - those macroblock “chunks” can be a few different shapes and sizes, up to a maximum of 16 pixels by 16 pixels. With HEVC, those chunks can be up to 64×64 in size - much larger than 16×16, which means the algorithm can remember fewer chunks, thus decreasing the size of the overall video.

Again, there are other things going on in HEVC, but that’s one of the biggest improvements - and when all is said and done, HEVC can compress videos twice as much as AVC at the same quality level. This is particularly important for 4K video, which takes up a huge amount of space with AVC. HEVC makes 4K video much easier to stream, download, or rip to your hard drive.

The Catch: HEVC Is Slow Without Hardware Accelerated Decoding

HEVC has been an approved standard since 2013 - so why don’t we use it for all videos already?

These compression algorithms are complex - it takes an awful lot of math to figure this out on-the-fly as a video is playing. There are two main ways a computer can decode this video: software decoding, in which it uses your computer’s CPU to do that math, or hardware decoding, in which it hands the load off to your graphics card (or the integrated graphics chip on your CPU). A graphics card is far more efficient, as long as it has built-in support for the codec of the video you’re trying to play.

So, while many PCs and programs can attempt to play an HEVC video, it might stutter or be very slow without hardware decoding. So, HEVC doesn’t do you much good unless you have a graphics card and a video player that both support HEVC hardware decoding.

This isn’t a problem for standalone playback devices - 4K Blu-ray players, including the one in the Xbox One, are all built with HEVC in mind. But when it comes to playing HEVC videos on your PC, things get tougher. Your computer will need one of the following pieces of hardware in order to hardware decode HEVC video:

·         Intel 6th generation “Sky lake” or newer CPUs

·         AMD 6th generation “Carrizo” or newer APUs

·         NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950, 960, or newer graphics cards

·         AMD Radeon R9 Fury, R9 Fury X, R9 Nano, or newer graphics cards

You will also need to use an operating system and video player that supports not just HEVC video, but HEVC hardware decoding - and this is a bit spotty at the moment. Many players are still adding support for HEVC hardware decoding, and in some cases it may only work with certain chips from the list above. At the time of this writing, VLC 3.0, Kodi 17, and Plex Media Server 1.10 all support some form of HEVC hardware decoding, at least for certain cards. You may have to enable hardware acceleration in your player of choice for it to work properly, though.

As time goes on, more computers will be able to handle this kind of video, and more players will support it more widely - just like they do with AVC/H.264 now. It may just take a while for it to become ubiquitous, and until then, you’ll have to store your 4K videos in AVC/H.264 at giant file sizes (or compress it more and lose image quality). But the more HEVC/H.265 becomes widely supported, the better video is going to get.

Established in 2000, the Soukacatv.com main products are modulators both in analog and digital ones, amplifier and combiner. We are the very first one in manufacturing the headend system in China. Our 16 in 1 and 24 in 1 now are the most popular products all over the world.

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Source: howtogeek