As reported by Kotaku, the latest episode of Did You Know Gaming discusses content that had been cut from the Metal Gear Solid series, based on old interviews and books. It includes weapons that were just too weird to make it into a game, story elements that were abandoned, and game sequences that were removed and turned into cutscenes. But the most interesting tale comes from a planned boss battle sequence in Metal Gear Solid 3 that was so bad it led to developers booing Kojima....

AMD’s Radeon HD 5850 was able to reclaim its lead over the GeForce GTX 285 in Unreal Tournament 3. Here the card was 10% faster at 2560x1600 with an average of 64fps. This nonetheless made the Radeon HD 5850 roughly 42% slower than the higher-end 5870, which is the biggest margin we have seen yet.

We’ll dive right in to see how this all works. If this is your first time checking out our 3D rendering series, we’d recommend starting at the beginning with our 3D Game Rendering 101 which is a basic guide to how one frame of gaming goodness is made. From there we’ve been working every aspect of rendering in the articles below… Recap So far in the series we’ve covered the key aspects of how shapes in a scene are moved and manipulated, transformed from a 3-dimensional space into a flat grid of pixels, and how textures are applied to those shapes....

However, applying your own customizations to a copy of Windows 10 that hasn’t been activated may not be so straightforward since Microsoft blocks access to the software’s personalization settings without a valid product license. While most of the operating system can be used for free without providing an activation key, not having access to the personalization menus can be annoying if you like having custom colors, sounds, start menu and task bar settings, or again, even just your own desktop background....

When you’re new to playing games from multiple storage devices, there can be a bit of a learning curve associated with having multiple libraries spread about. Some platforms like Steam hold your hand and make it easy to move your games along, while some others feel more like they want to slap you for even thinking of moving your game files. There’s a performance consideration when you’re moving from an SSD to an HDD or vice versa....

What I found was an abundance of HP MediaSmart software that I wouldn’t hesitate to remove. Other questionable software includes Stardock MyColors, Stardock LogonStudio, Norton Internet Security, MSN Toolbar and Hulu Desktop. Fortunately there were some useful full software suites installed, most notably Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro X3, Corel VideoStudio Pro X3, Cyberlink DVD Suite and a copy of Microsoft 2010 Starter. HP has also included Stardock’s Fences on the Envy 14, a program we featured some time ago that allows you to organize desktop icons and even hide them by double-clicking on the desktop, resulting in a clutter-free home screen....

Though the VoodooPC brand was retired in 2014, it has lived on as a division of HP, who continued to use Voodoo’s distinct tribal mask logo until just recently. The new Omen logo debuted months ago when HP reworked the brand. That overhaul brought new product additions and a more mature look – we recently checked out the Omen 15 Ryzen gaming laptop – and on the desktop side we have Omen’s latest systems: the 30L and the 25L....

These results show the Spectre x360 once again falling behind the Dell XPS 13, which uses an identical 60 Wh battery, although the XPS does have the advantage of using a display without a power-sapping touchscreen. The XPS 13 is also a top performer when it comes to battery life and can be hard to outperform. Looking generation-to-generation the new Spectre x360 does outperform the old model slightly, which is expected for the minor battery capacity increase and similar CPU efficiency....

This IPS display packs excellent viewing angles, and although the glossy finish does introduce distracting reflections at times, colors really pop through the glass. Brightness levels are slightly above average for an Ultrabook, at around 350 nits, while a contrast ratio above 1200:1 is very good if typical of an IPS panel. HP doesn’t make any claims about the color performance of this display, and in my testing I recorded 93....

Some convertibles only opt for Core M CPUs, resulting in lower-than-ideal laptop performance. The Spectre x360, on the other hand, contains a standard Core i5 or i7 CPU, providing performance just as good as today’s ultrabooks. The review unit we received packing the Core i7-7500U delivered great performance. It won’t be significantly faster than last-gen Skylake laptops, but you’ll see decent gains over anything over two years old. I’m pleased to see a range of affordable configuration options....

Anyway, let’s check out how the Snapdragon 810 in the One M9 performs. There’s a couple of things to note here before I dig into the numbers in the benchmarks above. Firstly, results seemed to fluctuate more than normal while running our set of browser benchmarks in Chrome. I’m not sure why this is, but it didn’t seem to be related to temperature throttling or the SoC itself, as the Snapdragon 810-powered G Flex 2 I also have on hand didn’t exhibit the issue....

The Snapdragon 810 is the first high-end SoC from Qualcomm in several years to use ARM designed CPU cores, rather than custom in-house cores from their Krait line. This is because Qualcomm was keen to get in on the 64-bit action, and although they hold an ARMv8 license that allows them to produce custom 64-bit ARM cores, their designs weren’t quite ready for release in time for the Snapdragon 810 moving to a sampling phase....

As I’m sure you will have read about by now, the “big” new feature included with the U11 is its ‘squeezable’ sides that allow you to launch apps and perform functions without touching the display. The phone also includes all the latest hardware: a Snapdragon 835 SoC, a 5.5-inch 1440p display, and a 12-megapixel f/1.7 camera supposedly rated the best on the market. I’m going to open this review by first talking about the U11’s squeezable sides, which HTC has branded as “Edge Sense”....

Intel launched its Xe HPG (the name Arc was going by back then) Scavenger Hunt on March 26 to gain more publicity and interest for its Alchemist graphics cards. It began with a video posted on Twitter containing some hidden codes that pointed to an Intel website and went from there. The hunt has now finished. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that Intel sent out confirmation messages to the 200 winners informing them of their prizes and the bundle’s approximate retail value (ARV), which means we can work out roughly how much Intel’s desktop cards will cost at launch....

According to IT Home, Intel’s B760 motherboards will cost around 10 percent more than the B660 chipset. This could make them even harder to justify since current information suggests the B760s will only be marginally better than their predecessors. Sources told IT Home that Intel has finalized B760’s specifications and that board partners should get them next week in preparation for public release in January. Previous reports indicated Intel will unveil H760 and B760 at or just before CES 2023 on January 5, along with the non-K Raptor Like processors, before launching them later that month....

As you can see, the Ryzen 7 1800X is rather far right and still quite low, looking a bit better than the Core i7-7800X in terms of value. Remember, the 1800X itself isn’t a particularly good value sitting next to the Ryzen 7 1700, which sadly we didn’t have time to add to this review but will in future articles. Compared to the 6950X, the new 7900X is a massive step forward in terms of value offering much greater performance at a much better price....

Although Ivy Bridge only provided a slight performance increase over Sandy, it was still a welcomed arrival for newcomers to the platform. Ivy Bridge improved efficiency, added a few new features, while it maintained the same price point of Sandy Bridge. Haswell, on the other hand, seems less attractive for desktop users for a simple reason: it is not backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. The new LGA1150 socket means those wanting to upgrade to Haswell will need a new motherboard, such as those featured in our review....

L3 cache support in Clarkdale CPUs was limited to 4MB. The Sandy Bridge architecture differs, though things are a little more confusing. The Core i5 range will provide a 6MB L3 cache, while the Core i7 processors will receive 8MB L3 cache. The more affordable Core i3 range will be cut down to a 3MB L3 cache. However the Sandy Bridge architecture features a shared L3 cache that is shared across all cores and the processor graphics as well....

This week, Intel presented a detailed rundown of XeSS, the company’s competitor to Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR image upscalers. Much of the keynote elaborates on what Intel had previously revealed, but it does contain some new details. Intel has revealed that XeSS would have five scaling modes offering a range of compromises between frame rate and image quality – more than either of its competitors. For example, Quality mode will scale an image by 50 percent....

The most recent iOS 16 beta build has a feature in Messages that allows users to undo or edit sent messages. It could be handy in cases where you accidentally send a text to your mom that you meant for your wife and in other situations where you don’t want to feel stupid by replying, “Sorry. That wasn’t meant for you.” Unfortunately, the feature only works if the recipient also runs the most up-to-date Apple operating system....