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As you probably know from previous coverage, Sony’s DualShock 4 controllers make decent gamepads for PCs and are relatively easy to set up. That didn’t change with the release of the PlayStation 5 and its DualSense controller. The only difference is that, unlike the DualShock, the DualSense requires frequent firmware updates. The problem with updating a DualSense is that it requires users to connect it to a PlayStation 5 via USB....

Perhaps more exciting is that someone uncovered a map in the CS:CZ files called “Zombie City” that was an early prototype for Left 4 Dead dating back to as early as 2004. YouTuber Tyler McVicker notes that despite the name, the mod did not have any zombies. Instead, the proof of concept played out in a cityscape, with up to four counter-terrorist players trying to get to a bomb on the other end of the map (below)....

Upon closer inspection, the crew discovered that four 14 gauge wires are distributed across a total of six contacts (each outer contact is tied to one wire, and the two inner contacts each have two wires soldered to them). “The solder base is a mere 0.2 mm thin copper base with a width of 2 mm per incoming wire, which then results in 4 mm per pair for the middle connections,” Igor’s added....

Now called just Proton, the company’s new URL, proton.me, shows there are three subscriptions on offer, all of which unify its products. The first of these is free, but you’re limited to 1GB of space—though it’s still double that of the previous free tier—shared between Proton Mail and Proton Drive, one email address, three labels and folders, and 150 messages per day. You also get one personal calendar and one medium-speed VPN connection....

Just about everything can be customized in some way. The main menu includes sections titled System Administrator, Disk Management, Access Right Management, Network Services, Applications, Backup, External Device and System Status – not to mention that most of these contain several sub-menus. Under System Administrator, we first entered the “General Settings” sub-menu where the server name and port can be configured, as well as time, date and language settings. The “Network” sub-menu follows with TCP/IP settings along with a few status options such as link speed and activity....

The new patch for the original Quake primarily adds optional settings to make the text more readable and some voice-to-text functionality. Now, users can adjust the font, contrast, how long text stays on the screen, and how many lines appear. The game can also directly read chat text aloud with a synthetic voice and transcribe voice chat. A new screen flash slider should make Quake safer for players susceptible to flashing lights....

Gears of War 4 is an Nvidia-sponsored DX12 title so this helps the 1060 hang in there with the 570. Overall performance was much the same on both graphics cards at 1080p, though the RX 570 did pull ahead at 1440p. Titanfall 2 is an AMD special though it has to be said I was expecting the RX 570 to be more than 5% faster than the GTX 1060 here....

Razer acknowledged this criticism and rather than waiting for a new Intel processor generation to debut a refreshed variant, the company has pushed out an updated Blade Stealth only months later. You won’t see massive improvements here, but there’s enough small changes to push this laptop closer to perfection. So what are these changes? The first obvious improvement addresses the main issue: bezel size. The new Blade Stealth is now available with a 13....

Many multiplayer shooters have a spectator mode that allows users to watch what is going on from different perspectives. It’s an excellent way to observe what strategies other players use or to enjoy watching an outstanding player destroy the competition. However, to do this, you must be playing the game. Jeremy Hartmann and Daniel Vogel from the University of Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science published their research in late April....

Sony’s latest PC port of a formerly PlayStation 5-exclusive game – the award-winning Returnal – lands on February 15. Like some other games arriving in the first quarter of 2023, it will require a reasonably beefy setup to play at 60 frames per second, especially in 4K or with ray tracing. The roguelike third-person shooter’s minimum system requirements haven’t changed since December: an Intel Core i5-6400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580, and 16GB of RAM to play the game at 720p and 60fps at low graphics settings....

HIS also recently unveiled their gold edition graphics cards which includes the R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo. Apart from the change in color from black to gold for the fan shroud, the card uses the same IceQ X² cooler. However the R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo is the most aggressively factory overclocked HIS R9 280X graphics card yet. HIS has increased the core clock speed to 1050MHz with a memory clock of 6000MHz....

Last year, cyberattacks against corporate networks reached record-setting levels in terms of frequency and size, mostly because of the Log4J vulnerability that was left unpatched by many organizations for several months. Earlier this month, a new and hard-to-detect malware was discovered on Linux-based systems that had been stealing credentials and enabling remote access for malicious actors. In a similar vein, a new stealthy remote access trojan dubbed ZuoRAT has been detected by security researchers at Lumen Black Lotus Labs....

Ever since AMD, Intel, IBM, and other semiconductor companies stopped sales to Russia, the country has been having a hard time sourcing the chips needed to keep essential government systems operational. This situation has forced them to start allowing bootleg tech imports and reusing components from household appliances. Russia is also planning to manufacture chips locally, but that could take years. Electronics company Dannie has reportedly come up with a temporary solution, using Chinese-designed Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6640MA system-on-chips on their MBX-Z60A motherboards....

World of Tanks doesn’t hammer a processor the way that a game like Warhammer or Battlefield 1 does, not to mention that CPU utilization is also quite poor and multi-core CPUs aren’t properly utilized. That said, because it isn’t that demanding on processors, you’ll find that models such as the Pentium G4560 do quite well. The dual-core Intel CPU is clearly peaking with the GTX 1060 but it’s doing so with a minimum frame rate of a little over 130fps....

Though arguably CPU pricing should be a non-issue when entertaining the idea of spending $700 on a graphics card, maybe it’s not such a far-fetched scenario. After all, if you can save $300+ on the CPU, that’s $300 or so you can spend on a faster graphics card. Or alternatively, if you already own an R5 3600, you’re no doubt interested in how it handles the RTX 3080. In this article, we’ll look at performance in 15 games running at 1080p, 1440p and 4K with the Ryzen 5 3600 in a stock configuration using 32GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory....

Before checking out memory performance and power consumption, I ran a few synthetic and application benchmarks. Cinebench R15 is good for measuring raw CPU performance and memory performance has little impact here. Interestingly, the Core i7-7820X outpaced the 6900K when matched clock-for-clock, albeit by only 4% faster, but this bucks the trend we’ve seen so far. When it comes to multi-threaded performance, the Ryzen 7 1700 and 7820X are on par, though the Intel CPU does enjoy a 5% advantage in single-threaded scenarios....

The “Edge” refers to an extra, curved section of AMOLED 160 pixels wide that has been slapped on to the regular 2560x1440 Note 4 display. Occasionally it will do a few things, and you’ll feel happy you spent an extra $200 on the feature. The rest of the time it just sits there; a blank panel that turns heads because it’s so unusual. It’s a true prototype device, but one that Samsung has also put on the market to tempt consumers....

The last iteration of TouchWiz, which was seen on the Galaxy Note 3, looked dated and was visually unpleasant. It was a mess of gradients, flat elements and horrible visual choices that melded awfully with the stock Android look of apps on the device such as Gmail, Google Now, Chrome and the Play Store. Every aspect of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5 has been overhauled, with the skin now having a coherent look and feel across all apps and pages....

The lens that accompanies this sensor is a 25mm-equivalent with an aperture of f/1.7, which again is an increase in light gathering ability of 25% over the f/1.9 lens on the Galaxy S6. Combined with the pixel size increase, around 95% more light is being captured by this camera system overall, which is a huge improvement over the last generation. Optical image stabilization is also included to complement the package....

This month, Samsung started sending out minor updates to Galaxy phones that are several years old, which usually no longer receive support, possibly reaching hundreds of millions of users. The affected models include the Galaxy S5 Neo (Vodafone’s version), Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy S6 series, and the Galaxy A7. Galaxy S5 owners should look for firmware version G903FXXU2BFG3 in the settings app. Galaxy S6 phones receive firmware version G92xFXXU6EVG1, the Galaxy Alpha gets version G850FXXU2CVH9, and the A7 receives A750FXXU5CVG1....