Tag: take-advantage

Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

As promised, Discord is rolling out video chat and screen share to its entire user base. Some of you may recall that the Slack-style gaming chat app began testing the highly-requested features in August. During the trial run, they were available to around 5 percent of members. Now, anyone can take advantage of video chat in one-to-one calls, or with up to ten people in a direct messaging group. You also have the option to switch between your webcam video and screen share. And, the update includes picture-in-picture support, allowing you to video chat while checking out other stuff (like servers or DMs). With 45 million users and counting, the latest changes should see Discord swipe more gamers from Skype and TeamSpeak. Back when the test phase was announced , Discord revealed users could experience a drop in quality when video chatting in groups of more than five. But we’re assuming it ironed out those issues ahead of the proper launch. Aside from the video chat rollout, it’s also fixed a bunch of bugs that were affecting things like text, emoji, and the mute option. You can browse the details for yourself here . Source: Discord (Medium)

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Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

Ever-changing memory could lead to faster processors

Virtually every central processor in your devices uses a tiered set of memory caches to speed things up by fetching commonly used data. But it’s not very efficient — in trying to accommodate everything, it’s rarely the fastest at anything. MIT’s CSAIL researchers want to fix that. They’ve developed a cache system (appropriately named Jenga ) that creates new cache structures on the spot to optimize for a specific app. As Jenga knows the physical locations of each memory bank, it can calculate how to store data to reduce the travel time (and thus lag) as much as possible, even if that means changing the hierarchy. Whether an app would benefit from multiple cache levels or one gigantic cache, this system would be ready. The gains could be huge. A simulated 36-core chip ran up to 30 percent faster just by adopting Jenga, and could use up to 85 percent less power. You wouldn’t necessarily face a penalty for having many cores in a chip, even in laptops and smartphones where every watt counts. Of course, there’s one major problem: Jenga is just a simulation. It could take a while before you see real-world examples of this cache, and longer still before chip manufacturers adopt it (assuming they like the idea, that is). This also assumes that Jenga scales neatly across different core counts. Will you see similar gains with ‘just’ an 8-core chip? It’s easy to imagine CPU giants like Intel or Qualcomm leaping on this concept, though. Chip makers frequently boost performance by moving to ever-smaller manufacturing processes, but they’re gradually running into physical limits . So long as there’s software to take advantage of it, Jenga could wring extra performance out of chips with relatively little effort. Source: MIT News

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Ever-changing memory could lead to faster processors

PS4 Pro might have a ‘boost mode’ to improve frame rates (update)

Sony’s new PS4 Pro provides a noticeable visual upgrade to games that have been patched to take advantage of the console’s extra horsepower. But what about all the rest of your games that developers haven’t updated yet? Well, a thread over at the NeoGAF forum indicates those games may soon look better too, thanks to a new feature called “Boost Mode.” A posted Japanese screenshot from a PS4 Pro shows a description for Boost Mode reads: “Games that launched before the PS4 Pro (CUH-7000) can now have its in-game frame rates improved. If any unwanted reactions/gameplay effects occur, please turn this mode off.” It seems like this mode would help intense games that drop frames maintain a higher frame rate — but, it won’t magically let games that are locked at 30 FPS go above that limit. It’ll just keep things consistently higher. Similarly, it could let games with variable resolutions stick closer to 1080p more consistently. Sony just pushed out a beta version of the big 4.5 update it has planned for the PS4 to testers, so that appears to be where this screenshot came from. Of course, there are a lot of unknowns here right now, but we’ve reached out to Sony to see if it can clarify Boost Mode’s existence and how it works for us. Of course, since the 4.5 software that’s out in the wild is just a beta, it’s entirely possible this feature gets removed, but it’s good to see Sony may have a way for more games to take advantage of the PS4 Pro’s hardware. Update: A spokesperson has gotten back to us with the following information and confirmed Boost Mode is part of the beta firmware: “Boost Mode lets PS4 Pro run at a higher GPU and CPU clock speed for smoother gameplay on some PS4 games that were released before the launch of PS4 Pro (and has not been updated to support PS4 Pro). Games that have a variable frame rate may benefit from a higher frame rate, and load times may be shorter in some games too.” Source: NeoGAF

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PS4 Pro might have a ‘boost mode’ to improve frame rates (update)

USB-C’s new audio spec could get rid of your headphone jack

Like it or not, the effort to get rid of the headphone jack is well underway. The USB Implementers Forum has published its long-expected Audio Device Class 3.0 specification, giving device makers the standard they need to pipe sound through USB-C ports on everything from phones to PCs. And the organization isn’t shy about its goals, either — this is mainly about letting companies removing the ages-old 3.5mm port, according to the Forum. In theory, that means slimmer devices, better water resistance and opening the “door to innovation” through room for other features. We’re not sure everyone will buy that last argument, but there are some advantages to the spec that are worthwhile even if the headphone jack is here to stay. Aside from offering better digital audio support (such as headphones with custom audio processing), the USB-C sound spec improves on earlier USB approaches with power-saving measures and keyword detection. In other words: a company could take advantage of USB audio without hurting your battery life as much as before, and it should be easier to implement voice recognition. This doesn’t mean that every company will embrace 3.5mm-free hardware with the same enthusiasm as Apple or Motorola . After all, Samsung used its Galaxy Note 7 introduction to make a not-so-subtle dig at Apple’s then-rumored decision to drop the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. However, the USB-C spec may nudge vendors who were thinking about ditching the conventional audio socket and were just waiting for official support to make their move. Via: AnandTech Source: USB Implementers Forum (PDF)

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USB-C’s new audio spec could get rid of your headphone jack

Get ready for simple USB-C to HDMI cables

More devices are starting to ship with USB-C connectors built-in, and today groups behind HDMI and USB announced another way to take advantage of it. That method is HDMI Alt Mode, which means cable manufacturers can build a connector that plugs directly from the port on your phone, laptop or other device into the HDMI port on a TV or monitor. With this spec, there’s no additional dongle or adapter needed in the middle. It’s all pretty simple, with just a USB Type-C cable on one end, HDMI on the other, but there are a couple of drawbacks. It supports the older HDMI 1.4b spec instead of the newer HDMI 2.0b . What that means for you is that while 4K video, 3D, HDMI-CEC and Audio Return Channel are all supported , it won’t be quite enough to send the newest Ultra HD 4K video with HDR . That’s probably not an issue if you’re just trying to play a video or two from your phone, but it’s good to know.

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Get ready for simple USB-C to HDMI cables