General Gaming Article |
- Play Black Ops III Multiplayer Free Until Sunday Afternoon
- Linux Community Lambasts Microsoft Over Skype Issues
- Microsoft Sticks a Fork in Project Astoria, Its Android-to-Windows 10 Porting Tool
- Apple Files Motion to Reverse Court Order
- Microsoft Siding with Apple in FBI Dispute
- Full-Screen Ads Showing up in Windows 10
- Rant: Windows 10 Auto Updates Sucks
- The Winter 2016 Turbo
| Play Black Ops III Multiplayer Free Until Sunday Afternoon Posted: 26 Feb 2016 10:27 AM PST Can't beat the price Valentine's Day is in the rear view mirror, football season is finished, and the NBA playoffs won't start for more than a month. Find yourself looking for something to do this weekend? That leaky faucet still needs fixed, but if you're not up for manual labor, you can log some multiplayer action in Call of Duty: Black Ops III for free. The free period has already begun and runs until 1PM Pacific (3 PM Eastern) on Sunday, so there's plenty of time left to hop in and log some kills. This is for the multiplayer portion only, which Activision recently began selling as a standalone purchase for $15. It's not the full multiplayer experience, but it does include ranked multiplayer with a level cap of 55, access to the Weapon Paint Shop, Gunsmith, and Black Market, plus the Arena, Freerun, and Theater game modes. There are certain omissions—no Zombies game mode and you can't play in custom multiplayer games. However, there's plenty to keep you busy for a few days. The standalone Multiplayer portion will be available to purchase up through Monday, so if you end up having a blast and want to keep the good times rolling, don't procrastinate in making a purchase. It's also worth mentioning that Activision has marked down the full game, including the deluxe version. If you purchase the standalone Multiplayer pack, you can upgrade to the full game for another $24.60 or to the Deluxe version of $65. By themselves, they're currently on sale for $39.59 and $79.99, respectively. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Linux Community Lambasts Microsoft Over Skype Issues Posted: 26 Feb 2016 09:58 AM PST Pissed off penguins Linux users are chastising Microsoft for not paying enough attention to its Skype software on their platform of choice. They're ticked off that Skype had gone without an update on Linux for over a year and a half, and that the the long overdue upgrade that was rolled out this past Monday broke the client. Several Linux users who applied the update complain that the Skype client will no longer join calls. Fed up with the situation, Linux users Boltgolt and Nickforallnl wrote an angry blog post directed at Microsoft. Following the post, Linux users in various forums came out and said they're experiencing issues, too. "We do understand that Linux is a competitor of Microsoft's Windows. But we do not understand why this results in a lack of support for Skype. Linux is actively being used by power users who can not or do not want to use Windows because of a lack of features, and now, those (paying) users who used Skype for both Business and Private purposes are dropped by Skype," the blog post reads. It's signed "Lots of angry Linux user" followed by #ThanksBill because apparently this is Bill's doing somehow. In any event, the issue has more than a few Linux users ticked off at the situation. Skype is one of the services that Microsoft sees as core to its Windows 10 strategy. The same goes for OneDrive and Office 365, all of which are multi-platform offerings, which has been a point of emphasis for Microsoft. It seems unlikely that Microsoft would intentionally create headaches for Linux users, though it may not be appreciating the size of its Linux audience, hence why Skype's gone so long without an update. Microsoft has yet to comment on the issue. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft Sticks a Fork in Project Astoria, Its Android-to-Windows 10 Porting Tool Posted: 26 Feb 2016 09:22 AM PST Burning Bridges Microsoft wanted to make it easy for mobile app developers to port their software over to Windows 10 without having to rewrite their code, so it created a series of so-called bridges. They're essentially toolkits designed to do the dirty work for developers. There was one for porting Android apps to Windows 10 called Project Astoria, but it's now appropriate to refer to it in the past tense because Microsoft has burned that bridge. The other bridges Microsoft got around to building was one for porting iOS apps over to Windows 10 and another for web apps. There are also plans to build a bridge for Win32 apps sometimes this year. Those are unaffected by the announcement, though the iOS bridge may see an uptick in activity. "We received a lot of feedback that having two bridge technologies to bring code from mobile operating systems to Windows was unnecessary, and the choice between them could be confusing. We have carefully considered this feedback and decided that we would focus our efforts on the Windows bridge for iOS and make it the single bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, including Xbox and PCs," Microsoft explained in a blog post. "For those developers who spent time investigating the Android Bridge, we strongly encourage you to take a look at the iOS Bridge and Xamarin as great solutions." News of the change comes a day after Microsoft inked an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a cross-platform mobile development software vendor. Xamarin is separate from Microsoft's bridge strategy, though the goal is the same—to get mobile apps from other platforms ported to Windows 10. "UWP developers can not only reach all Windows 10 devices, but with Xamarin, they can now use a large percentage of their C# code to deliver a fully native mobile app experience for iOS and Android," Microsoft added. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft plans to fully utilize Xamarin alongside its remaining bridges. That's something the company will talk more about during its Build conference at the end of next month. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple Files Motion to Reverse Court Order Posted: 26 Feb 2016 08:40 AM PST In response to the US government request that Apple create special software to access a locked iPhone 5c, the company filed a motion on Thursday to reverse the court order, stating that the dispute isn't about one isolated case, but the "dangerous power" that could be given to the Department of Justice and the FBI. "This case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe," the motion reads. After filing the motion, Apple held a conference call with the press, dubbing the software the FBI wants Apple to create "GovtOS." The company said that this new operating system, which would be void of specific security features currently offered on the iOS platform, could be used on "hundreds" of iPhones that law enforcement agencies have collected from suspected criminals. Apple reportedly plans to argue its point in court based on the First and Fifth amendments. On the First Amendment front, forcing Apple to create GovtOS would violate its right to free speech and expression, which in this case is defined by the code that provides encryption on the iPhone and in turn represents the company's corporate values. As for the Fifth Amendment, Apple would be denied its right to liberty and property. How? By "undermining the security mechanisms of its own products," according to Business Insider. "If this order is permitted to stand, it will only be a matter of days before some other prosecutor, in some other important case, before some other judge, seeks a similar order using this case as precedent," the motion adds. "Once the floodgates open, they cannot be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote." Apple's motion arrives after FBI Director James Comey said that his agency isn't trying to set a precedent in order to gain entry to encrypted devices. He told a House panel on Thursday that the code Apple will write will be for the specific iPhone 5c used by deceased San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Farook. Comey said that the idea of this tool getting out into the wild and working on another iPhone "is not a real thing." He also said that the code would remain in Apple's hands. "They were very helpful, by the way," Comey said, referring to Apple. "I want to be sure people understand there are no demons in this dispute or the larger dispute (about encryption). Apple has been very cooperative. We just got to a place where they were not willing to offer the relief that the government was asking for." Apple's motion states that it would be forced to create a forensics lab at its main HQ in Cupertino, California, so that the government could use GovtOS, seemingly backing up Comey's statement earlier today. In addition to setting up the lab, Apple would also need dedicated employees to work on the project, and that the project could take as long as four weeks. Apple believes it shouldn't have to endure this kind of burden. Apple also believes that the question of forcing companies to create back doors in their operating systems to assist law enforcement isn't a legal one, but one that requires political dialogue. The company is also concerned that if it's forced to create GovtOS, the next step could be that the government could force Apple to turn on the microphone, track the user, or turn on the video camera in the name of government surveillance. Finally, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department told USA Today on Thursday that its attorneys are currently reviewing Apple's new motion, and will respond "appropriately" in court. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft Siding with Apple in FBI Dispute Posted: 26 Feb 2016 08:33 AM PST Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said during a congressional hearing on Thursday that the company plans to file an amicus brief next week to show its support for Apple. The news follows a statement made by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates earlier this week, who said he was "disappointed" that media outlets felt he supports the government in its dispute against Apple, which isn't entirely true. Microsoft joins a number of technology companies that are siding with Apple. Facebook is reportedly filing a separate industry brief, while Google's parent company Alphabet plans to do the same. Twitter is expected to get involved as well. Apple, it seems, is not alone in its fight to protect the privacy of its customers. According to USA Today, Smith said that Microsoft "wholeheartedly" supports Apple, which is currently refusing to create software so that the FBI can gain access to the iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI currently can't get around the passcode security feature, which will wipe the device if the passcode is entered incorrectly 10 times. The FBI simply wants to bypass this feature and use "brute force" to gain access. As previously reported, the FBI deems this software a simple tool. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook says it would be an entirely new version of iOS that's void of specific security features, providing the FBI with a back door. This would be a dangerous tool, Cook indicated, one that Apple does not want to create. "The only way to get information—at least currently, the only way we know—would be to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the equivalent of cancer," Cook told ABC News on Wednesday. "We think it's bad news to write. We would never write it. We have never written it—and that is what is at stake here. We believe that is a very dangerous operating system." Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said that it supports Apple in its stance toward the government, and will also supply an amicus brief to show support. The organization said that if Apple is forced to create a master key, then other governments from around the world will demand the same access from Apple. "The US government wants us to trust that it won't misuse this power," the EFF said in a public announcement. "But we can all imagine the myriad ways this new authority could be abused." The FBI previously indicated that it needed Apple's help only with this specific case regarding the iPhone 5c obtained from the San Bernardino shooter's car. But reports surfaced earlier this week that the Justice Department wants Apple to unlock at least nine additional iPhones involved in different cases. Apple legal representative Marc J. Zwillinger said that Apple is fighting seven of those cases at the very least. "The implications of the government's demands are chilling," Cook recently said in an open letter. "If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone's device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone's microphone or camera without your knowledge." Cook said that Apple believes that the FBI's intentions are good, but it would be wrong for the government to force the company to build this new operating system. Based on the upcoming support from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, other software giants agree. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full-Screen Ads Showing up in Windows 10 Posted: 26 Feb 2016 08:00 AM PST Microsoft launched Windows 10 last summer as a free upgrade for customers using Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Of course, the software isn't completely free: you must own a valid (read: Genuine) copy of the older operating systems in order to upgrade to the latest and greatest. To buy Windows 10 outright, the "Home" version will set you back $120 from Microsoft's store. The company has been rather aggressive about consumers upgrading to its new OS as of late, going so far as to have the update already downloaded to the user's device even before they opt to make the switch. That's because Windows 10 is now listed as a "Recommended Update" and is no longer in the "reservation" phase. This download will commence if the user has automatic updates turned on. Thus, with Microsoft handing out free copies of Windows 10 to genuine customers, the company is now moving to rake in revenue from this seemingly generous move by displaying advertisements. Over the last few days, reports have surfaced that the company has begun advertising Rise of the Tomb Raider on lock screens, the latest chapter from Square Enix that is now available for Windows 10 in the Windows Store for $60. This ad is displayed on the lock screen thanks to the "Windows Spotlight" feature built into the new platform. Windows Spotlight will pull cool images from Bing, display them on the lock screen, and allow the user to choose "I want more" or "not a fan" without having to unlock the screen. Now it seems that Microsoft is pushing ads to this screen, too. The good news is that these ads can be disabled. Unfortunately, there's no specific "disable ads" setting to toggle. Instead, hit the Start button, load the Settings app, choose Personalization, and then Lock Screen. Here you'll see the Background field, which may already display the Windows Spotlight option by default; change this to Picture or Slideshow. Also disable "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen." However, note that if you leave Windows Spotlight as the default setting, you'll get ads and the "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen" setting won't appear. If you change to Picture or Slideshow for background images, the "Get fun facts" setting will appear and will presumably provide ads if it's not turned off. Last year, Microsoft began pushing ads to the Modern UI portion of the Start Menu in Windows 10. These appear as apps you haven't manually installed, and when selected, lead users to the Microsoft Store to purchase and download. The company also places these fake apps in the "Suggested" category in the Start Menu listing. As with the lock screen, disabling these ads is pretty easy to do. Just hit the Start button, load the Settings app, click Personalization, click Start, and then switch the "occasionally show suggestions in Start" toggle to "off." Microsoft said back in January that Windows 10 was installed on more than 200 million monthly active devices worldwide. Windows 10 adoption is accelerating, the company added, and is outpacing the adoption rate of Windows 7 by 140 percent and Windows 8 by almost 400 percent. Even more, people spent more than 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December alone. That's a lot of time to inject a few ads in front of user eyeballs. VIA: How-To-Geek | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rant: Windows 10 Auto Updates Sucks Posted: 26 Feb 2016 02:48 AM PST You know that moment: the moment you lose you work because you saved a little too late, or completely forgot to save. The moment you look down at your palms. It's a terrible feeling, especially when your computer crashes. This is why it's a good idea to use Google Docs. Unfortunately, if you're using Windows 10, you're forced to restart when Microsoft decides an update is needed. Sure, you can set a schedule, but it's unlikely you'll remember what it was. And if you don't set a schedule? Well, you're completely SOL. Even if you do set a schedule, Windows will restart on you. I was working on some headphone test sequences, which take a long time to set up, especially because the software I'm using is industrial and I'm learning as I go. I had a friend over to discuss some audio-related things with, and we were going through the analysis of how things should be tested. During a discussion, my back was turned to the PC so I could talk about some concepts. Then I heard a beep. We paused for a second and my friend said, "That sounded like a reboot." When I turned around, the PC had rebooted with a message saying "We're installing updates for you." I had lost my test sequence. Microsoft, at what point did you think that keeping my Windows install updated was more vital than my work? If you really want me to update, keep annoying me with an update, and I'll eventually get to it. Don't just shut down without giving me the opportunity to save. This is about the stupidest thing I've seen in any operating system. It's shocking that Microsoft still hasn't removed automatic restarts as a default from Windows 10. If you're using Windows 10 Home, you're out of luck. There is no way to disable the automatic reboot for updates. The only way you can get around it is to set your broadband connection to a metered connection. This prevents Windows from downloading updates automatically, and consequently won't automatically reboot. So, the only way to get around this on Windows 10 Home is to be on Wi-Fi, and set your W-iFi to a metered connection. What's that? Well, some ISPs have monthly data caps. But here's the problem. What if you're using Ethernet? Nope. You can only turn on metered connection over Wi-Fi. What? If I am with an Internet service provider that is metering me, I'm metered regardless of my connection to the ISP. This is stupid. On Windows 10 Pro, you can disable automatic reboots by going into the Local Group Editor > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Configure Automatic Updates. In the above preference pane, click Enabled. Once enabled, you can choose your options of how updates behave. This turns off the automatic restarts completely. Why this isn't enabled by default is truly beyond me. It's also a really boneheaded move. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 26 Feb 2016 12:00 AM PST 4K? A-OKAh, the Turbo. How we love thee, with thy i7 CPU and heaps of memory. With clock speeds fast and FPS high, thy power has the ability to make one cry. Well, maybe not cry, but we still look forward to building the Turbo each season. The Turbo is our power rig, only bested by our Dream Machine (or overpowered Build Its). With a target budget of $3,000, the Turbo is a little cheaper than some boutique systems. However, this machine is by no means cheap. We don't expect every gamer to be able to justify the Turbo. For most gaming needs, the Midrange Rig will usually suffice. The Turbo is for enthusiasts who are looking for a little more power. It's also for those who really feel the need to be able to play games at 4K at 60 frames per second. Each time we build a new Turbo, we make a few tweaks, but the main themes remain the same. Haswell-E CPUs, X99 chipsets, and high-powered graphics cards form the core of the system. That still leaves plenty of room for customization. So, what did we customize this time around? Let's see:
Prices reflect in-cart price at time of procurement. Prices fluctuate and may change daily. Listed prices include instant rebates, but do not include tax or mail-in rebates. Return of the Master CaseWe first made use of Cooler Master's super-modular MasterCase 5 when we built the /r/PCMasterRace-inspired "Gloriousness" Build It. The case has a lot to offer, and is handsome to boot, so we gave it another go with this build. One of our favorite things about this case is that you can remove or add cages and other elements as you see fit. Lots of cases allow you to remove hard drive cages, but how many allow you to remove the 5.25-inch ODD cage too? Not many.  The whole case is designed to be customizable with nothing more than your own two hands. Be that as it may, the thumbscrews do come a little on the tight side, so having a screwdriver handy for the initial removal is handy. You'll also need the screwdriver for things like attaching the mobo to the standoffs and attaching your cooling, but that's pretty standard everywhere anyway. While the case has two placement options for radiators and fans, we opted for the front of the case for our Kraken. An attachment is available that fits on top of the case, allowing for big radiators to be mounted on top of the top fan bracket. The case is also available with a side window, though we opted for a solid door in this build. If you ever change your mind, you can order the door separately. No more spinningWe opted to go for all solid-state storage in this Turbo build. This was a bit of a tricky decision, since for $3,000 you'd expect heaps of storage plus some to spare. Our Fall 2015 Turbo offered four 1TB WD Blacks so that we could store games in a RAID 10 array. With this in mind, the decision to go with just 1TB of backup storage can be shocking. (Note that it's half the capacity of a RAID 10 array of four 1TB drives, though.) We spent some more cash on nabbing a Samsung 950 Pro, a speedy NVMe SSD. The only problem with NVMe is that it's stupid expensive. Since we didn't want to spend over $300 on just 512GB of storage, we opted to nab the cheaper 256GB model and store our other data on a 1TB 850 Evo. That 1TB Evo isn't cheap either, but we feel that 1TB of storage is the minimum (and even under that, depending on use case) for a rig at this price.  While it's not the most economical approach at the moment, we believe that future gaming PCs (and PCs in general) will slowly eschew spinning hard drives for SSDs as prices come down. The main exception to this rule may be the rise of consumer network-attached storage (NAS) devices. By storing the big, heavy items like movies, music, and photos on a NAS, the need for a beefy local HDD begins to disappear. Really, the only reason you would need beefier local storage in a consumer configuration is to house a massive Steam library. For workstation power users, speed of storage may trump raw capacity. Of course, there's a need for capacity as well, but loading up big files quickly means SSDs almost by default, and lots of them. The benchmarksIf there's one thing that's great about running benchmarks on the Turbo, it's that it usually doesn't take too long. The hexa-core i7 makes short work of multi-threaded tests, while the akimbo GTX 980 Tis make watching the 4K tests actually kinda fun. Without a huge spiritual change in the core CPU and GPU combination, the performance was right on par with what we saw in the Turbo last fall. In 3dMark Fire Strike, the Turbo smashed the test, offering smooth visuals for us to ogle as the test ran. With a score of 7,020, saying the Turbo is Oculus-ready is a gross understatement. When it came to the 4K gaming tests, this rig didn't even break a sweat. Topping 74 frames per second in Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and nearly 80 fps in Tomb Raider, there's not much that this rig can't do in terms of gaming. One thing to keep in mind in that a lot of of this power is capped at 60 fps anyway. We have yet to see a 3840x2160 monitor with a refresh rate topping 60Hz. Fewer still offer any adaptive sync technology, so you'll pretty much be stuck with plain-old V-Sync. Look at us complaining. It's 60 fps at 4K for Pete's sake. When we ran our 1440p test on the Turbo with Batman: Arkham City, the term overpowered comes to mind. With an average frame rate of 235, the idea that Batman could somehow slow down this rig made us chuckle a bit. If there's a place for the Turbo to calm the **** down and eat humble pie, it's single-threaded performance. The Haswell-E i7-5820K is a great processor, but at stock clocks it just doesn't keep up with the clocks that the i7-6700K (or i7-4790K) comes armed with. It's for this reason our Gigapan Stitch 2.3 benchmark regularly favors the i7s from the smaller sockets: LGA 1151 and LGA 1150. Things start to look up when we run the ProShow Producer 5 benchmark. ProShow Producer 5 can make use of multiple cores, but clock speeds also matter in this test. We've seen Skylake and Devil's Canyon CPUs best Haswell-E chips here before. The final test is where the Turbo shines. In our X264 benchmark, every thread that the CPU can offer is utilized. While core clocks make a difference with comparable CPUs, this test shows that raw core count often means more than a few extra hundred megahertz. While the Turbo can't keep up with the Dream Machine's overclocked i7-5960X or the Build It: Rocket Science's overclocked i7-5930K, the 5820K holds its own with stock clocks, leaving quad-core CPUs in the dust. This rig is always a joy to build, and we're always looking forward to the next one we get to put together. That said, there are a few things in this build that some may want to alter if you want to use this PC as a reference. First off, if you really need that storage space, go for a few spinning multi-terabyte HDDs. While the high-capacity SSDs are sexy and fast, HDDs are still cheaper and will hold all that raw data for pennies on the GB. The 1TB WD Black usually hovers around $70, which makes it about 6.8 cents per gigabyte. In comparison, the 1TB 850 Evo costs $330, making it about 32.2 cents per gigabyte. If you ever plan on going with three-way SLI (why, oh, why?) you'll need to upgrade two key parts: the CPU and PSU. At 850W, there's plenty of power from the PSU to power this rig, even with a modest overclock. However, you'll need to upgrade to 1,000W to support a third 980 Ti. You'll also need to upgrade to a 5930K, which offers the full 40 SLI lanes needed for a third GPU. As it stands, this rig's 28 lanes are filled by the first two GPUs for a total of 24 lanes (16 + 8), plus another four for the NVMe SSD. If you're bothering to add another GPU, we'd wait for 4K gaming monitors to start hitting the market first. |
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