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343 is expanding the beta tests for Halo 3: ODST on PC--check your email now. The Halo 3: ODST closed beta tests have begun on PC, and if you didn't get into the first wave of the preview test, you should check your email again. 343's Tyler Davis wrote on Twitter that the developer has sent out more than 100,000 additional invitations to Halo Insider members on Steam. You can sign up for the free Halo Insider program here. Invitations are sent to the email address tied to the account. This is a normal process for Halo's beta tests on PC for The Master Chief Collection. The tests begin with a limited number of participants before more people are invited in to further test the game at scale. Those invited can try out six campaign missions and seven Firefight maps, plus some of the new changes and improvements coming to the Master Chief Collection, including new weapon skins and guns for Halo 3 some 13 years after the iconic shooter originally launched. A beta test is also available on Xbox One, but it's not clear if that test is being expanded like it is on PC. Whatever the case, the ODST campaign has been available on the Xbox One version of the Master Chief Collection since 2015, but Firefight, the wave-based multiplayer mode, is making its long-awaited debut. Both the campaign and Firefight are heading to PC for the very first time. ODST was originally released back in 2009 for the Xbox 360. Critic Tom McShea awarded it a score of 9/10 in GameSpot's Halo 3: ODST review, saying, "The delicate construction of the story adds a new wrinkle to the typical Halo plot, and the action-packed campaign levels are full of intense battles and surprising encounters. Firefight mode is a standout addition, crafting highly addictive cooperative battles for players to experience."

Speedy storage on-the-go Western Digital has a new edition to its My Passport line. Announced today, WD's new My Passport SSD has plenty of portable storage capacity and upgrades to NVMe, According to Western Digital, the updated My Passport nearly doubles the transfer speeds of previous editions, hitting up to 1,050 MBps read speeds and 1,000 MBps write speeds. Capacity goes as high as 2TB. Users can also encrypt their data easily using 256-bit password-protected encryption protocol. The My Passport's case is definitely designed for users on-the-go, something ideal in a portable drive. The chassis is both vibration and shock-resistant, according to Western Digital, and the vendor claims that the SSD can survive a drop of up to 6.5 feet (1.98m). My Passport drive supports USB 3.2. It comes with a USB-C cable and USB-A adapter. For best performance results, you'll want to use a USB 3.0 port when possible. Western Digital's selling My Passport with a 5-year limited warranty. It's currently availble for pre-order on the Western Digital website, starting at $120 for 500GB and going up to $360 for 2TB. The older version of this drive, also known as WD My Passport, uses a SATA connection and is listed on our Best External Drives page. So, it'll be interesting to see how this upgraded NVMe take performs.

The widespread outage hit Asia during work hours, as well as the US and Europe. Gmail appears to be working again Thursday after people worldwide reported disruptions to a number of Google services over about seven hours. A widespread outage of the po[CENSORED]r Google services began shortly after 9 p.m. PT Wednesday. People reported issues in the US, Europe and parts of Asia including India, Japan, Singapore and Australia, according to outage monitoring site DownDetector. Gmail users said they had trouble attaching files and were unable to send and receive emails. Some had problems logging in. As of 4:10 a.m. PT Thursday, Google said on its status dashboard that the problem with Gmail was resolved. "System reliability is a top priority at Google. We are making continuous improvements to make our systems better," reads the latest update. The company didn't say what caused the outage. Twitter surged with complaints about the service disruption. Gmail and Google Drive suffered a global outage in March 2019 that also affected people's ability to send emails.

Original release date : August 13, 2020 Series : Total War Developers : Creative Assembly , Feral Interactive Platforms : Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Linux Publishers : Sega , Feral Interactive A meaty, engrossing strategy spin-off with an attention to detail that is both a blessing and a curse. The Aegean Sea is a raging inferno. You may have heard tales of a great war between the ancient Greeks and the Trojans, a feud kindled by divine intervention, stoked by love and betrayal, and finally extinguished in an epic siege. In the newest Total War Saga, the Paris-Helen-Menalaus love triangle is the spark that doesn't just ignite the Trojan War of legend--it turns the entire eastern Mediterranean into a tinderbox. As a more focused, more specific take on Total War, Troy has an epic tale to tell. But to the benefit of the series' strategic legacy, Homer's writings set the scene rather than deliver a script, leaving plenty of room for those of us who haven't memorised The Iliad to enjoy crashing one enormous army into another and watching the world burn. At first, Troy seems a bit small. There's just the one map upon which the campaign is played. But that map is absolutely massive, taking in all of mainland Greece, a hefty slab of the western coast of modern-day Turkey and dozens of islands in between. The diverse geography provides a healthy mix of terrain types across the map, which in turn present different strategic challenges: The densely forested mainland is ideal for ambushes and funnelling armies through its mountainous corridors while the islands in the Aegean may be more exposed but any invading force is likely to have suffered attritional losses making the treacherous journey by sea. Fortunately, since you'll be spending most of your time playing Troy scrolling around the campaign map, it looks beautiful, too. Those forests and mountains, those archipelagos ringed by reefs and gorgeous blue water are depicted in exquisite detail. However, the settlements themselves lack distinguishing features and don't seem to evolve in appearance as they develop. It's disappointing you can't actually see the farmlands, quarries, lumbermills, and temples you've built spill out onto the map. Still, the way the crumpled parchment fog of war burns away as you chart new territory is lovely, and it echoes the stunning black and red figure paintings that loom over the horizon at all times. If Troy isn't the best looking Total War yet, it's certainly the most visually striking. There are only eight playable factions--split evenly between the Trojans and the Danaans--though each one feels distinct in crucial ways. Faction leaders possess markedly different abilities both on and off the battlefield that, when combined with a clutch of unique units and buildings, allow for contrasting strategic approaches. They even introduce whole new mechanics. I played a lot as Sarpedon of Lycia and was able to take advantage of his ability to interfere in trade deals between other factions, redirecting resources my way or cancelling deals outright. I felt like a Trojan puppetmaster, pulling the strings to bend the region's politics in my favour. Even though I only toyed with the other factions and didn't get to fully appreciate their unique mechanics, it's clear these mechanics are incredibly powerful--Odysseus, for example, can construct buildings of his own inside an allied settlement while Paris can move Helen around the map and gains huge bonuses and penalties depending on how near or far apart they are. The starting locations add a further dimension--Sarpedon is quite isolated albeit vulnerable to attack from across the sea while Agamemnon is protected by powerful neighbouring allies but as a result doesn't have much elbow room to expand. Such disparate beginnings prompt a fresh set of priorities when you move from one faction to the next. Your early turns on the strategic campaign map are an opportunity to scope out the lay of the land and ponder how the new multi-resource system is going to influence your plans for expansion. You have just the one small army initially, and the options to recruit additional troops are basic. To support more troops you need more food, and to recruit better troops you need wood, stone, and bronze to build the various barracks from which they spawn. Each settlement on the map specialises in one of these resources, so marching off to war isn't necessarily a case of pointing your spearmen in the direction of your nearest neighbour. The war machine can quickly grind to a halt if you're not producing enough bronze. Properly scouting the land to identify valuable and complementary resource deposits is important, and it's immensely satisfying when you finally conquer a target and the goodies start rolling in. Once you've secured yourself a handful of provinces, managing your empire's economy can feel a little rote. When it came to selecting which buildings to build and which ones to upgrade, I rarely felt like I was making tough choices. Much of the time, in fact, it felt like it didn't really matter whether I opted for the farmland or the granary or the hunter's lodge since they all basically do the same thing to varying degrees. Do you want a bunch of stone per turn or do you want a slightly larger bunch of stone per turn and a slight hit to your province's happiness? Does it really matter? Indeed, there's a consistent sense that plenty of the choices you're making are trivial, as if a whole lot of tiny decisions are adding up to not very much at all. I levelled up one of my spies 24 times over the course of the campaign and I really couldn't tell you whether that time I opted for an 8% boost to his movement made any difference whatsoever to his performance. He did manage to assassinate a Spartan general when he had only a 17% chance of succeeding, so I dunno, maybe I made a smart choice somewhere along the line. The effects of your decisions are far more apparent on the battlefield, assuming you prefer to fight them yourself rather than auto-resolving. Troy is simply a terrific demonstration of the Total War battle system. Here, the granularity and accumulation of small differences are genuinely meaningful. Mostly, it's in the make-up of the army rosters and your ability as a general to bend subtle statistical variations to your will. It's about recognising that your opponent's slingers have slightly better range than yours, but if you can send your nible light chariots down the flank they can hit the slingers from behind and force them back into range. There isn't a huge range of unit types, but there is a seemingly endless variation. Even the nods towards Greek myths with the presence of harpies, centaurs, and so on are in fact simply twists on the standard archetypes. The centaur, for instance, is merely one of the few cavalry units--just a dude riding a horse, albeit a really quick one who serves as a useful scout and irritating flanking force. Sometimes the granularity is too fine and things can become hard to read in the heat of battle. I would find myself pausing the action now and again to double-check an enemy unit. It's not always immediately obvious that these guys with an axe and shield also have a ranged attack, or that these chaps with the spears are better armoured than those other chaps with the spears. This lack of clarity, and resulting reliance on stat comparisons mid-battle, isn't too much of an issue though since you'll want to be pausing things anyway to tweak your instructions and better coordinate the next phase of your assault. Indeed, the only real negative when it comes to Troy's combat suite is the tedium of the special siege battles. Whether you're encamped for multiple turns outside the castle gate on the campaign map or waiting for your battering rams to slowly do their thing, there's an awful lot of not doing very much during a siege. What should be climactic encounters rarely generate the level of excitement or tactical ingenuity found when fighting in the open. Despite its smaller, more intimate focus, Troy is unable to shake some of the annoyances that plague the Total War series. There are too many battles to fight. As enjoyable and accomplished as the battle system most certainly is, it can be exhausting to fight this many of them. The option to auto-resolve any battle goes some way to alleviating combat fatigue, but the AI is a poor substitute for your tactical leadership--if you want to avoid unnecessary losses, you have to fight them yourself. There's also too much diplomacy. Like the battles, the diplomacy system is deep and dynamic, affording you considerable opportunity to barter, trade, and form all sorts of alliances, but the AI is too eager to engage you in it. Every turn you find yourself bombarded with diplomatic offers--Want some bronze for this stone? How about a non-aggression pact?--that you're never in a million years going to accept. It slows down a game that is already slow enough to process the AI turns and contributes nothing other than forcing you to manually decline each offer. There's a fine line between wanting the game world to feel alive with other factions pursuing their own interest and not wanting the player to feel overwhelmed with notifications, and sometimes Troy falls on the wrong side. Perennial issues aside, with Thrones of Britannia and now Troy, the spin-off Saga series has proved adept at delivering a kind of Total War that is more focused, flavourful, and even experimental than the mainline series. In the specific case of Troy, it's not always an unmitigated success; for every dose of granular detail that reveals more strategic options there's another element of graininess that obscures. At its best, though, Troy is a pretty epic series of bloody enjoyable battles that is just about as good as the series has delivered. System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Core i3 or better RAM: 4 GB VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 650 1GB | AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB | Intel HD 5300 DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1024 MB Recommended Requirements CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-4670K RAM: 8 GB VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 | AMD Radeon R9 290X DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB

Updating drivers gets easier A new Windows 10 update looks set to bring back one of Windows 7’s best features, allowing users to quickly and easily download and install drivers and optional updates to ensure their PCs run as well as possible. The update, Windows 10 Build 19041.450, brings an optional updates page, which you can find by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View optional updates. This update also means new drivers can be found and installed via Windows Update, rather than going into Device Manager, where they used to be. Hopefully, this should be an easier – and more user-friendly – way of making sure your drivers are updated. Better updates? Windows 10 has been plagued recently with a series of problematic updates that have caused more problems than they’ve fixed, and many of them were optional. By giving users better control over what’s installed, hopefully people can avoid installing any dud updates. Having the latest drivers installed can also help make sure PCs run as well as possible – so making it easier for people to do that is to be commended. Driver updates, as well as non-security updates and general quality updates and tweaks will now be shown in the ‘Optional updates’ page. If you want to try it out, make sure you have Windows 10 KB4566782 installed, which is the 19041.450 build.

Away with the clutter. If there's one issue that RGB made, it's the sheer number of cables that it adds to your system. Next to all the power and data cables you already have, each individual RGB device needs cables too, and when you pack a system full of six RGB fans that can add up painfully. Lian Li now has a solution for that: interlocking fans, so that each group only needs one RGB lead. The fans are called Uni Fan SL120, and for now they only come in the 120mm size either in black or white. These are high-static pressure fans capable of spinning at speeds between 800 and 1,900 RPM, producing between 17 and 31 dBA of noise. The sides and tops of the fan are made of sandblasted aluminum, and the lighting consists of 32 LEDs in each fan. The end result is quite a neat looking fan. To connect the fans, you simply slide them into each other, interlocking them to create one long fan array, which you then secure into place in your case or on your radiator. Add a controller, hook that up, and you're all set. To control the addressable RGB fans, Lian Li made its own L-Connect software. Pricing for a set of three is set at $80, which includes the required controller. Each additional fan will run you another $25. The kits are available on Newegg, shipping out on September 15.

DH1 : DH2 :

Nickname : @.-AdiiLo-. Tag your opponent : @Hossam Taibi Music genre : Old-School Hip-Hop Number of votes : 6 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @.-AdiiLo-.

Hello, I was waiting for more activity from you, but you totally stopped your activity. Contra.

DH1 : 0 Votes DH2 : 4 Votes Winner @.-AdiiLo-.

With the Chromium-based version of Edge now in place, Microsoft is looking to move on from its older browsers – IE11 and the original Edge. Microsoft on Monday set dates for nudging Internet Explorer (IE) toward the grave and for ending security support of the original circa-2015 Edge browser. Neither announcement was unexpected. Microsoft reduced IE – notably the final edition, IE11 – to second-rate status more than four years ago, when it halted development of the browser. And once the Redmond, Wash. developer released a stable, production-grade version of its reworked Edge, the one built with technologies from the Google-dominated Chromium open-source project, it was only a matter of time before the company axed the legacy Edge. The earlier version debuted alongside Windows 10 in July 2015. Although Microsoft bundled the announcements into a single post to a company-run blog, each end-of-support decision – one regarding IE11, the other the 2015 Edge – was aimed at separate, if sometimes overlapping, constituencies. One year to IE11's 'degraded experience' with Microsoft 365 Ironically, the hammer will fall lightest on IE11: Only the browser's ability to connect with Microsoft 365 applications and services will be affected by the impending deadlines. Here's what will happen and when. The Teams web app will stop supporting IE11 starting Nov. 30. All remaining Microsoft 365 apps and services will no longer support IE11 beginning Aug. 17, 2021. (Microsoft is using Microsoft 365 as a generic label; the same deadlines will obviously hold for the apps and services provided by Office 365, the older and less expensive software subscription.) The support stoppage will not be a clear-cut matter, Microsoft explained, essentially saying that IE11 may continue to connect with and operate on such apps as Teams and services as SharePoint, past the set deadlines. Instead, the end of support will result in a gradual decline of functionality. Think of it as IE11 entropy. "After the above dates, customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE11," Microsoft wrote. "For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE11." While the vague explanation will immediately have customers confused – Will IE11 connect to the app or not? – it's in keeping with how Microsoft typically defines end of support. However, one moment of clarity came when Microsoft confirmed that the cutoff also applies to the IE Mode baked into Chromium Edge. "Using Internet Explorer mode in the new Microsoft Edge will not help to extend IE 11 access," Microsoft said. That make sense, since what IE mode does is call up designated sites using IE's Trident engine rather than Edge's Chromium. Old Edge gets risky in March The second announcement Monday centered on the original Edge, which Microsoft tagged as "Legacy" to separate it from the newer browser based on Chromium. Here's what will happen and when to Edge Legacy on the desktop. The 2015 browser will receive its final security update on March 9, 2021. This deadline carries more certitude. After that date – a little less than seven months from now – vulnerabilities found or reported in Edge Legacy will not be patched by Microsoft. The browser will continue to work as before, but running it will come with some risk as users won't know whether unfixed flaws exist that criminals could exploit. "Now that we've shipped the new Microsoft Edge, and upgraded most of our Windows 10 customers to the new browser, we're ending support for the Microsoft Edge Legacy desktop app," Microsoft said. In June, Microsoft began replacing Edge Legacy with Chromium Edge on some PCs, avoiding those powered by Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Education and Windows 10 Workstation Pro, as well as devices running Home or Pro that are managed by the organization's IT. Microsoft cited the fact that it had "upgraded most of our Windows 10 customers to the new browser" as the reason for quashing Edge Legacy's security support. Customers wedded to Legacy Edge who have not been automatically upgraded by Microsoft to Chromium Edge – a firm that relies on Windows 10 Enterprise, for instance – will have to adopt a different browser by March 9, 2021, to avoid potentially-risky surfing. Naturally, Microsoft wants those customers to grab Chromium Edge. To that end, it offers FastTrack assistance free of charge to customers with 150 or more paid Windows 10 Enterprise licenses.

A Twitch live stream on Tuesday night gave more details about the upcoming Madden 21 Ultimate Team. It’s one of the more po[CENSORED]r modes in the game, despite the fact it can involve a lot of micro-transactions. During the new presentation, EA Madden’s Agent K and Jake Stein talked about what’s on the way for the game mode. In particular, we got our first look at the four MUT Captains and this year’s Master player. Madden 21 Ultimate Team captains include Eddie George, Ed McCaffrey In Madden 20, MUT gamers chose one of four team captains as part of their squad for the season. Those choices included MLB Ryan Shazier, TE Dallas Clark, WR Herman Moore, and CB Ty Law. Basically, gamers had their player on their Ultimate Team roster and then could get upgrades throughout the course of MUT season. There was also an option to switch out team captains as needed. That option will return for Madden 21 Ultimate Team, as they mentioned there will be an exchange set. It will be available multiple times through the MUT 21 season. As far as the choices for Madden 21 MUT captain, they have four new options. They’ll include halfback Eddie George, defensive tackle La’Roi Glover, wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, and cornerback Aeneas Williams. During EA Madden’s Twitch stream, they also showed off how the new MUT captains will start out as far as attributes in the game. New MUT Masters player is Sam Mills In Madden 20, there was also a Masters player that gamers could earn for their MUT roster. That player was upgradeable throughout the season through the completion of different missions. In MUT 20, it was former NFL player Pat Tillman who left his football career to serve in the United States Army and was killed during friendly fire in Afghanistan. For Madden 21, the MUT Masters player will be former Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints middle linebacker Sam Mills. After playing eight years with the Saints, he became part of the expansion franchise in Carolina, playing in every game for the team’s first three seasons. In 1998, Mills went on to join the Panthers’ coaching staff. He was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2003 and told he had just a few months left to live. However, he underwent chemotherapy and radiation and continued his coaching career. Mills ultimately passed in April 2005 at the age of 45. In his honor, the Panthers retired his jersey at the start of the 2005 season. He’ll become the latest Madden Master in the upcoming game, with players able to earn him through a quick Ultimate Team mission. Just like the MUT captains, he’ll become upgradeable over the course of the Ultimate Team season.

Big, Bigger, Biggest The original Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) is a marvel in truly every sense, but the company has now upped the ante. The original WSE brought an unbelievable 400,000 cores, 1.2 trillion 16nm transistors, 46,225 square millimeters of silicon, and 18 GB of on-chip memory, all in one chip that is as large as an entire wafer. Add in that the chip sucks 15kW of power and features 9 PB/s of memory bandwidth, and you've got a recipe for what is unquestionably the world's fastest AI processor. As you can see in the image above, the chip is nearly as large as a laptop. How do you top that? According to the Cerebras slide deck it shared at Hot Chips 2020, you transition to TSMC's 7nm process, which allows a mind-bending 850,000 cores powered by 2.6 trillion processors - all in a single chip that's the size of an entire wafer. The company says it already has the massive chips up an running in its labs. The current Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) sidesteps the reticle limitations of modern chip manufacturing, which limit the size of a single monolithic processor die, to create the wafer-sized processor. The company accomplishes this feat by stitching together the dies on the wafer with a communication fabric, thus allowing it to work as one large cohesive unit. The end result is 55.9 times larger than the world's largest GPU (the new Nvidia A100 measures 826mm2 with 54.2 billion transistors). Here's a rundown of the existing architecture , and another article covering the massive custom system used to run the processors in data centers . Here you can see images of the first-gen system that houses the chip, which has a robust power delivery and cooling apparatus to feed the power-hungry chip. Naturally, the second-gen Wafer Scale Engine will still occupy the same amount of die area (the company is constrained by the size of single wafer, after all), but more than doubling the transistor count and the number of cores. We expect the company will also increase the memory capacity and beef up the chip interconnects to improve on-chip bandwidth, but we'll learn more details when the company announces the final product.

Original release date : August 18, 2020 Developer : Cold Symmetry Publisher : Playstack Engine : Unreal Engine 4 Mode : Solo Platforms : PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Is a soul(slike) mortal? Aiming for greatness is the first step on the path toward achieving it, and it is clear that the developers at Cold Symmetry have done just that. Aspiring to meet the genre-defining standards of FROM software’s Souls series is as lofty a goal as a small team could aim for, but also one fraught with potential to misstep or simply repeat what has already been done. I’m happy to say that Mortal Shell, while far from perfect, does rise to meet most of the expectation set by its overt Souls-like qualities, albeit on terms that may cause those truly attached to FROM’s particular flavour of gameplay balance to baulk a little. I have no skin, and I must scratch Starting the game as a pale, humanoid husk armed with a long sword, the Souls-like inspiration is clear from the outset. You’ve got a health and stamina bar, the ability to dodge roll and combine fast, weaker blows with slower, stronger attacks. Every aspect of the world seems obscured behind inexplicable decay and dialogue designed to tease with fantastical concepts. It is at once familiar and different, tempting those familiar with such tone to immediately beg questions of how this world came to be and what its particular rules and oddities are. Once the initial impact sinks in, you’ll quickly face off against your first foe and a lesson in what makes Mortal Shell stand apart from its inspirations – hardening. At any time; be it mid-combo, falling from height or just standing around, you can press a button to harden your character’s skin and deflect a blow. Time slows for a moment when struck, allowing a swift counter or an evasive roll to escape the next attack aimed at ending your life. Your ability to harden is limited and must recharge, so there’s no standing still and sucking up endless blows, so timing its use during enemy attack sequences is vital. It might not seem like much, but with combat balanced around the mechanic, learning to harden at the right times will be the difference between success and failure. Do you mind if I borrow this? The other genuinely defining feature of Mortal Shell is the game’s namesake – the empty shells of fallen mortals. It’s not long after you begin the game that your first shell is found – a broken corpse resting on the ground. Through some esoteric magic, the pale husk you control will merge with the body and possess it, adjusting health and stamina bars and giving access to that shell’s particular quirks. The function of the shells in-game goes beyond modulating your stats and actually provides what is effectively an extra health bar and an extra life. Being fatally wounded won’t floor you the first time; instead, time freezes for a moment, and the impact knocks your pallid corpse inhibitor backwards out of the shell with a sliver of health remaining. You must then reclaim your shell while avoiding damage in order to return, fully restored and ready for round two. Fail again though, and it will be truly fatal. There are a handful of shells to find, each with a leaning toward particular play styles, with one being a tank-like mountain of health with low stamina while another is a fragile but athletic reversal of stats. Using another Soulslike standard, currency acquired from defeated enemies is used to upgrade the shells, with the first unlock for each of them being their name and a small chunk of lore. It’s a kick to find another shell and test the differences between them, but their specific quirks and bonuses must be unlocked using the aforementioned currency, which limits the initial differences between them and invites a player to lean toward one shell from the outset, especially if the player has yet to happen upon the others. That said, lore and context are locked behind the upgrades, with each offering spoken dialogue from the body’s former inhabitant that will give a reason for completionists and those particularly drawn to the narrative mysteries to level each shell up. Keep it clean Combat is fast and fraught with danger, as there is no blocking mechanic and parrying becomes essential after it is unlocked. This might pose something of a barrier to entry for those, like me, who played the Souls games with a shield in hand and a staunch refusal to use anything but the heaviest, smashiest weapons to deal with most situations – Mortal Shell will expect you to learn to play with its far more limited weapon set and static character build at the game’s beginning. Like the shells, there are a handful of weapons to acquire, but locating them isn’t easy from the outset and unlocking them requires you to defeat a continually returning foe who wields them against you. Where the Souls games give you choices on how you want to play from the outset with a variety of builds and easily acquired weapons with diverse move sets, Mortal Shell is, by comparison, a very specific and fixed, which can again invite a player to learn one weapon well, focus on levelling it at the expense of the others and never experiment as a result. The way Mortal Shell dishes out new weapons is not at all broken, but the execution is flawed for sure. Have we seen this tree before? Level design is again at once familiar and different enough to hook those longing for more adventures in dingy dungeons and dank depths, with the first area being a tangled forest full of narrow passages and camps full of grotesque, twisted men with a lust for your blood. It serves as a hub of sorts, connecting to the other major areas of the game and offering the first hints of your objective, given by a masked woman who speaks of the world unwinding and refers to you as a foundling, offering the chance to level your character as she does. Narrow passages lead to other major locations, including an obsidian citadel and while the aspiration to meet FROM’s standard is clear, there is a distinct muddiness and lack of focus to the locations, with some areas feeling excessively huge and devoid of interest beyond hordes of repeating enemies. Speaking of enemies, their designs are distinct and approach to combat is often unrelenting, dishing out long combos and powerful blows intended to provoke you to harden. Hammer hauling, grim-faced judges, giant frogs and supine ladies dual-wielding knives are among the parade of horrors. Alas, what takes away from the enemies is the over-abundance of them in some areas. The aforementioned obsidian citadel is a prime example of a large location with only four or five enemy types liberally scattered throughout. At times there’s a clear intent to create set-piece fights; at others, it feels like someone pasted enemies into some spaces with the intent of creating time sinks. In the worst instances, fights take place on narrow, elevated platforms where your combo will likely lead to you falling, and a lack of blocking means archers will turn you into an unwilling pin cushion. There is fun to be had, but it comes between these occasional bouts of annoyance at unfair encounters. When you stare into the abyss, it probably becomes a Soulslike Punctuating all of this is a grim and oppressive ambience that suits the tone set by the visuals very well indeed. Musically, there’s a lovely little feature where enemies will play a lute in their camp, providing in-game music as opposed to a soundtrack. You yourself can even play the lute, with it being a useful tool for drawing the ire and attention of nearby enemies. Again though, and as is the way with almost every facet of Mortal Shell, a lack of AAA polish can at times be jarring, as levels and mixing for some enemy noises are off while some sound effect choices may lead to thoughts of other things, such as the raspy groan of one particular enemy type being just a little too reminiscent of an infamous raspy groan from The Grudge series of films. For those who long for another Souls-like game, Mortal Shell will scratch an itch for sure. It has core gameplay and concepts that hearken to their inspiration and do well in living up to expectations on that basis. At a surprisingly low release price of £25, those tempted by the visuals and promise of an experience to fill the gap until FROM returns to take another swing at the genre they created would do well to give Mortal Shell their time and money. System Requirements: MINIMUM: Operating system : Windows 7 SP1 or newer Processor : Intel Core i5-4590 or AMD FX 8350 RAM: 8 GB of memory Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 Disk space : 12 GB of available disk space RECOMMENDED: Operating system : Windows 10 Processor : Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 RAM: 16 GB of memory Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Disk space : 12 GB of available disk space

Windows Insiders can test out the new theme-aware Start Menu and other 20H2 features now After launching version 2004 of Windows 10 back in May, Microsoft is now preparing to release its next big update for the operating system called version 20H2 which will performance enhancements, bug fixes and a new theme-aware Start Menu. The software giant first showed off its new theme-aware Start Menu earlier this year in a sneak peek posted on social media and senior program manager of the Windows Insider Program, Brandon LeBlanc provided further insight in a blog post, saying: “We are freshening up the Start menu with a more streamlined design that removes the solid color backplates behind the logos in the apps list and applies a uniform, partially transparent background to the tiles. This design creates a beautiful stage for your apps, especially the Fluent Design icons for Office and Microsoft Edge, as well as the redesigned icons for built-in apps like Calculator, Mail, and Calendar that we started rolling out earlier this year.” While the new theme-aware Start Menu can be used with both Windows 10's light and dark theme, users can also add a splash of color to their icons by turning on dark theme and toggling on the “Show accent color on the following surfaces” option under Settings > Personalization > Color. Theme-aware Start Menu Windows 10's 20H2 update will be available to all users in the fall but if you want to test out the new theme-aware Start Menu for yourself, you can do so now via Windows Update after joining the Windows Insider program. To join the Windows Insider program, you will need to open Windows 10's Settings, go to the Update & Security section and navigate to the Windows Insider Program tab. From here, click Get Started, link your Microsoft account, select the Beta Channel Option, restart your system, then go back to the Update & Security section in settings and have Windows Update check for updates. The update for Windows 10 version 20H2 will be there and you can download and install it and then restart your system to finish the installation. Keep in mind that you may have to wait for 24 to 48 hours after joining the Windows Insider program before the update shows up. Alternatively, if you have Build 19041.423 of Windows 10 installed on your system, you can unlock the new 20H2 features including the new Start Menu by tweaking your registry. However, this method is a bit more risky and users should make a backup of the registry before proceeding.

AMD's next-gen console APUs come out of hiding. Today at Hot Chips 2020, Microsoft will detail more of the internals of the Xbox Series X system architecture. Much of the information in the pre-published presentation covers details we already knew, but with the new slides in hand, there are some additional juicy morsels inside, including a diagram of the processor die. We have the full slide deck at the end of this article, but let's quickly hit a few of the highlights. Starting off with a bang, while we've known Xbox Series X would have an 8-core/16-thread Zen 2 CPU and a 52 CU GPU, this is the first time we've seen the full die shot. That GPU section is, not surprisingly, massive. The full chip is 360.4mm square, with 15.3 billion transistors. Doing some quick image analysis, the GPU takes up roughly half of the die (47.5% if you want a more precise estimate). Considering everything stuffed into the silicon, the die size is actually pretty manageable. A Zen 2 CPU chiplet measures 74mm square (with four times the L3 cache compared to the Xbox Series X APU), and then tack on a GPU that has more features and shader cores than Navi 10 (RX 5700 XT), which measures 251mm square. That's 325mm square without the enhanced Navi 2x cores and 12 additional CUs. Alternatively, it's over twice as big as AMD's Renoir APU, which measures 156mm square. Taking a closer gander at the die shot, it looks as though the full chip includes up to 56 CUs. (Feel free to correct us, as counting these things can be a bit tricky.) That's because with a relatively large die, yields of functional chips can be greatly improved by building in some redundancy. If our counting is accurate, it suggests AMD and Microsoft have only disabled 4 of the dual-CU clusters, and of course all eight of the CPU clusters have to work in order to get a functioning chip. The presentation also takes some times to discuss the decreased difficulties in chip scaling relative to Moore's Law. While the chip size of the Xbox Series X is in line with previous console hardware (375mm square for the Xbox One in 2013, 367mm square for the Xbox One X in 2017), and transistor counts have more than doubled relative to the Xbox One X (6.6 billion to 15.4 billion), the die cost is higher. Microsoft doesn't specify how much higher, but lists "$" as the cost on the Xbox One and Xbox One S, "$+" for the Xbox One X, and "$++" for the Xbox Series X. As we've noted elsewhere, while TSMC's 7nm lithography is proving potent, the cost per wafer is substantially higher than at 12nm. Microsoft also provided additional details on the Velocity architecture and its motivation. The Velocity architecture deals with using lower cost SSD storage in place of increasing system memory. In the past, the price for DRAM decreased by 30% each year, but for the past 8.5 years it has been dropping at 5% per year. Flash memory in contrast has continued to decline in price by 23% each year over the same period. Because SSDs are so much faster than the spinning platters used in HDDs for the previous consoles, there's a huge benefit in game load times. Combined with the sampler feedback streaming, the hardware is able to leverage the flash memory for improved overall performance without the need to massively increase the amount of DRAM. One of the more interesting new aspects of the next-generation consoles is ray tracing support. We've known both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 would support hardware ray tracing, but we didn't have any clear indication of what level of performance to expect until now. Microsoft at least appears to be downplaying the importance of using ray tracing in games, or at least that's our interpretation. It emphasizes the hybrid rendering approach, much as Nvidia's RTX cards have done, noting it's "not a complete replacement" for traditional rendering methods. As far as ray tracing performance goes. Microsoft only gives peak performance of 380G/sec ray-box calculations, and 95G/sec ray-triangle calculations. How does that compare with Nvidia's RTX 20-series hardware, where it claimed the RTX 2080 Ti could do 11 Gigarays/sec? We don't really know, as Nvidia didn't give peak performance and Microsoft didn't give typical performance. The slide does note that it was only a "minor area cost for 3-10x acceleration." That seems relatively similar to what we've seen from Nvidia's hardware. In games that combine ray tracing with traditional rendering, running with ray tracing enabled on Nvidia's RTX 2060 is often two or three times as fast as the previous generation GTX 1080 Ti. We still don't have concrete details on whether the Xbox Series X will have any additional hardware related to machine learning, for example like Nvidia's Tensor cores that are used for DLSS 2.0. The slides do mention Machine Learning Acceleration, and note an "ML inference acceleration" of 3-10x for a small die area cost, but that could be via FP16 or INT8 calculations run on the CU clusters. Wrapping things up (for now), the Xbox Series X will support HDMI 2.1 output, allowing for 120Hz 4K output, or even 8K60. There's no DisplayPort output, not that it was expected, but that does limit the capabilities if you were hoping to hook the console up to a traditional PC gaming monitor. The video encoder/decoder also has support for 4K and 8K AVC and HEVC/VP9 decoding, with AVC (H.264) and HEVC (H.265) encoding support. That should allow for improved streaming capabilities for anyone that wants to broadcast their latest gaming exploits. The presentation occurs at 7pm PT tonight, at which time we will update the article with more information from the live presentation.

Hard choice. I love both songs, I have a little preference for DH1 because of the instrumental and vocal. DH1 For me.

Take a look at Master Roshi's Evil Containment Wave! Master Roshi will be joining Dragon Ball FighterZ this September, as "it's time for the old turtle hermit to show you how martial art battles are won." Master Roshi is the third character in the FighterZ Pass 3, and he follows both Kefla and Goku Ultra Instinct. You can see Master Roshi in action below. While the video is short, it does give us a glimpse of Master Roshi in action, complete with his Evil Containment Wave attack and his iconic silliness. Master Roshi is the 41st character in Dragon Ball FighterZ, and there are still two more unknown characters left in the FighterZ Pass 3. Dragon Ball FighterZ was released in 2016, and the support has been great for this title that celebrates the world of Dragon Ball. In our review of Dragon Ball FighterZ, we said, "between the accessible auto combos, homing attacks, and simplified command inputs, Dragon Ball FighterZ is an inviting gateway into the world of fighting games for newcomers — whether you’re a Dragon Ball fan or not."

Vivaldi isn't adding a VPN anytime soon but the browser now offers improved tracker and ad blocking Vivaldi has released a new version of its privacy-focused web browser that expands the functionality of its built-in tracker and ad blocker but the company won't be adding a VPN anytime soon. This is because working with a third party to add a VPN to its browser could undermine its privacy. TechRadar Pro spoke with company's co-founder and CEO Jon von Tetzchner who provided more details on whether Vivaldi was considering adding a VPN to its browser, saying: “As of now, we have no plans. Any third party service comes with issues related to privacy. There is always a question of being able to trust the service provider.” As the number of web trackers has skyrocketed in recent years, Vivaldi decided to launch its browser on Android with a built-in tracker and ad blocker. With its latest release though, the company is taking things a step further by allowing users to enable even more blocking lists and even giving them the ability to include their own custom lists. Vivaldi ships with a series of preinstalled blocking lists/sources which can be easily enabled or disabled with a simple tick. Additionally, users can even opt for a country-specific list depending on their region or preference. Importing and adding a custom list into this feature is simple and can be done in a similar way to how users add their own lists to Vivaldi's desktop counterpart. By navigating to the browser's settings, users can activate, deactivate or remove an already provided custom list and make exceptions including any addition or change in the blocklists. Users can also enable or disable blocking for specific websites and manage blocking levels per site either from Vivaldi's address field or settings. Improved navigation In its latest version, Vivaldi has also made some changes to how users navigate in its browser by adding more functionality at the bottom of the app. The company had previously made it possible to switch between panel functions, bookmarks, history, notes and downloads at the bottom of the app. Now though, Vivaldi has moved similar buttons for enhanced tab functionality to the bottom as well. These buttons allow users to easily switch between open, private, recently closed or synced tabs. Lead designer of Vivaldi on Android, Alte Mo explained in a blog post why the company has decided to move all navigation bars to the bottom of the browser, saying: “A consistent layout across the entire app results in the predictability and usability that we strive for. Our aim in putting all navigation bars at the bottom is to make browsing with key functionality in Vivaldi just a thumb away. Based on user feedback, we’ll continue to make the interface more intuitive and visually striking.”

ARM May Be Acquired by NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) Before the End of This Summer ARM, the chip designer owned by the Japanese telecommunication giant SoftBank, has become a hot commodity lately as major players in the silicon sphere continue to contemplate its acquisition. We reported in early August that SoftBank representatives have purportedly approached NVIDIA ( NASDAQ:NVDA 462.56 1.06% ), TSMC ( NYSE:TSM 78.41 0.14% ), Foxconn, Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL 459.63 -0.09% ), Qualcomm ( NASDAQ:QCOM 113.74 0.29% ), and Samsung for acquiring ARM. For SoftBank, an outright sale of ARM is just one option. Other options include a possible relisting of the chip designer or a consortium of major silicon players buying significant stakes in the company. Interestingly, subsequent reports indicated that Apple and Samsung have apparently stepped away from the negotiating table, leaving NVIDIA at the head of the pack, followed by TSMC and Foxconn. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ‘Ampere’ Graphics Card Maxes Out at 2.1 GHz GPU Clock, Features 19 Gbps GDDR6X Memory Well, as per the exclusive reporting by UK’s Evening Standard, NVIDIA is now entering final talks for acquiring ARM, with a potential deal emerging before the end of the current summer season. According to the report, SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son is demanding a price as high as £40 billion ($52 billion) for ARM. This translates to a premium of around $20 billion relative to the $32 billion that SoftBank paid in 2016 to acquire ARM. As a refresher, ARM designs silicon chips and licenses instruction sets that govern how chips communicate. Moreover, ARM’s intellectual property – including the company's Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) – is utilized by Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei, etc. for their smartphone chips, thereby, corresponding to a market coverage of around 90 percent. It does make sense for NVIDIA to pursue a takeover of ARM. After all, SoftBank has been a major investor in NVIDIA, having amassed a $4 billion stake in 2017. Nonetheless, SoftBank’s gargantuan $100 billion Vision Fund disclosed in early 2019 that the entirety of its NVIDIA stake had been liquidated. If NVIDIA succeeds in taking over ARM, it would constitute one of the chip industry’s largest acquisitions. Nonetheless, the way forward is littered with obstructions and complications. Along with the usual hurdles associated with a deal of such magnitude, regulatory glare may prove to be a stumbling block. The British government may take a dim view of this development, particularly if the deal entails moving ARM headquarters out of the UK. Bear in mind that ARM provided a commitment to retain its UK headquarter and to increase its workforce as part of the 2016 deal with SoftBank. Finally, the chip designer's existing customers may try to block the acquisition or demand assurances regarding equal access to ARM’s technology. NVIDIA will benefit from synergies emerging out of its acquisition of ARM should the deal achieve closure. The development would also mark a continuation of the recent acquisition spree by the maker of GPU cards. As a refresher, NVIDIA officially completed its acquisition of Israel’s Mellanox Technologies on the 27th of April, capping an arduous process that spanned over 13 months. Moreover, on the 4th of May, NVIDIA declared that it was buying the open networking software company, Cumulus Networks, for an undisclosed amount. NVIDIA shares have risen around 95 percent year to date, thereby, eclipsing Intel’s market capitalization by $76.54 billion.

Accepted! DH1 : DH2 :