The PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller is an incredible input device, perhaps the most tangible example of “next-gen” gaming the new wave of consoles has offered to date. But you won’t necessarily see the upgrades just from looking at Sony’s controller.
At first glance, there are few differences between the PS4’s DualShock 4 and the PS5’s DualSense, which share nearly identical button layouts. But the DualSense changes the game (literally) nonetheless, thanks to the near-magic of its adaptive trigger system, which can adjust the tension of the rear buttons to make it easier (or harder) to press them down in response to gameplay.
It turns out that the answer to revolutionizing the controller isn’t to add more buttons but to make the ones we already have offer a deeper, better experience.
You only need to pick up a DualSense and launch into a game to see that it’s nothing like its predecessor. The first PS5 game I played was Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and I still remember feeling the rumble of a train or the crackle of electricity through the controller’s haptic feedback — another new addition to this generation — for the first time.
But even more critical is how the adaptive triggers change the web-swinging. Each *thwip* of a web as Miles soars through Manhattan now has a slight resistance to it, adding a sense of life and momentum to the traversal. From a gameplay perspective, the controls are virtually the same as PS4’s Spider-Man. But the new technology helps bring the game to life in a new dimension.
From a technical perspective, it’s an incredibly impressive system: each trigger actually has a separate geared motor that allows the controller to adjust the tension and resistance on the fly. Depending on how the motor is engaged, it can feel like anything from a smooth, effortless glide to an almost physical fight to depress the trigger. And while I’m still a little wary about the long-term durability here (more moving parts generally mean more points of failure), it’s one of the most cleverly engineered buttons in tech today.
And the DualSense’s benefits are clear across multiple PS5 games. In Astro’s Playroom (which is designed as a showcase for the new controller) you can feel the fiery rush of a jetpack and the twang of each bowstring. In Destruction AllStars, the triggers help subtly tell you when you’re picking up acceleration or braking as they increase or decrease the pressure it takes to push them, and warn you of your vehicle’s imminent destruction with a buckling sensation as you push your battered car to the limit. Fortnite’s guns each feel unique with the DualSense, with a shotgun blast, a pistol shot, and a heavy rifle all firing differently on the new console.
Seeing how games take advantage of the new triggers has already become one of my favorite things to do whenever I boot up a new PS5 game, and Sony has done a remarkable job of making each press of those buttons feel more significant.
Oftentimes, when discussing next-generation consoles, a big emphasis is put on the idea of immersion — ramping up the graphics to make games look even more like real life. But by focusing on improving not just on how games look, but how games feel, the DualSense arguably does more for immersion than any graphical upgrade (especially since, unlike faster frame rates or higher resolutions, it doesn’t require a fancy new TV to benefit from). It opens up a whole new avenue for developers to inform you about what’s going on on-screen and bring you even further in the world of the game.
There’s an alternate universe where Sony’s PlayStation 5 controller took the cues from its DualShock Back Button attachment and just added more paddles and inputs for players — an approach taken by the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, for example. It’s not a bad approach, especially for more advanced players that want that flexibility and customization, but it doesn’t make games more immersive or open up new ways to engage with what you’re playing.
The DualSense is a different approach, one that recognizes that the way forward for controllers isn’t to just add more buttons; it’s to make the ones that we already have more informative, more engaging, and more fun to interact with.
(Pocket-lint) – The LG Gram 16 is never going to make sense to some people. For many, a large-screen laptop has to be a super-powered desktop-replacer. And if it’s not, why does it exist?
LG’s Gram series has quietly challenged that view for the last few years. And the LG Gram 16 should make this concept less of a leap for those still struggling.
The pitch: the LG Gram 16 costs around a grand less than the MacBook Pro 16, but still has a big screen, a colour-rich display and long battery life. Oh, and it weighs 800g less and has a better keyboard, for some tastes at least.
Suddenly LG’s weirdo huge-but-light Gram laptops don’t sound so strange. Indeed, this 16-inch version is quite the stunning proposition.
Design
Dimensions: 313.4 x 215.2 x 16.8mm / Weight: 1.19kg
Magnesium alloy casing
Interested now? Let’s start by slapping the LG Gram 16 down to earth with one of the big issues you need to accept.
While the LG Gram 16 is a nicely made laptop, it doesn’t feel like a four-figures slab of the future when you pick it up. Carry it around like a notepad, give it a light squeeze between thumb and finger, and the base and lid panels will flex a bit.
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LG has not made the Gram 16 on a shoestring budget. But large, low-weight body panels come with compromises. And you feel them each time you pick the laptop up like this.
The LG Gram 16’s casing is magnesium alloy, which is the best material for the job. It’s lighter than aluminium for the same level of strength, and a lot nicer than plastic. Just don’t expect the dense unibody feel plenty of 13-inch laptops at this price level.
The issue is all about feel, not utility. The LG Gram 16’s touchpad doesn’t stop clicking because you lift it by one corner of the base. You can’t stop the internal fans spinning by pressing down on part of the keyboard surround. And, yes, we’ve seen these issues in laptops smaller and heavier than the LG Gram 16.
Its keyboard panel, the most important of the lot, is pretty rigid – if not immaculately so. A little outer panel flex is only a big issue if you think it is.
Despite being a new entry in this series, the LG Gram 16 nicks its style from its siblings. This is a very plain, serious-looking laptop that isn’t out to dazzle eyes or fingers with flashy finishes. All panels are matte black with a very light texture similar to a soft-touch finish.
There’s a kind of confidence to a lifestyle laptop this plain, one that weaves a style out of sharp-cornered keyboard keys and a semi-distinctive font. If anything, LG could actually go plainer on this key typeface, which looks a little close to that of a gaming laptop.
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But the aim is pretty clear: the LG Gram 16 is a laptop that can fit in just about anywhere. You can take is anywhere too, as the 1.19kg weight is lower than that of the average 13-inch portable.
The footprint isn’t tiny, of course, but it couldn’t get all that much smaller considering the 16-inch display has fairly small borders on all four sides.
Display
16.0-inch LCD panel, 2560 x 1600 resolution
99.1% DCI P3 colour coverage (as tested)
Glossy plastic finish
The LG Gram 16’s screen also helps keep the shape sensible, as this is a 16:10 aspect display, one taller than the standard widescreen style. This maxes out the perception of space when you use apps, rather than video. There’s no issue with the quality of the panel either.
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Colour depth is truly excellent, matching what you get in a top MacBook Pro. Brightness is strong enough for outdoors use, which is pretty impressive considering the sheer square inch count the LG Gram 16 has to light up.
Contrast is not the best around, but is still good for an LCD-based screen. And resolution is, well, the one LG should have chosen. It’s at 2560 x 1600 pixels, sitting above Full HD, but a way below 4K.
The MacBook Pro 16 has a sharper screen still, at 3072 x 1920 pixels. But the LG Gram 16 still adds the crucial pixel density it needs to avoid the obvious pixellation that can happen in a larger display like this.
If you use a 13-inch laptop at the moment that supersize boost is the first thing you’ll notice. The LG Gram 16 makes it seem so much more like you’re using a monitor that happens to be hooked onto a laptop, rather than a laptop screen. That’s great for dull work apps, even for games.
However, the actual character of the screen doesn’t quite make the most of the top-quality panel underneath, because of another concession made for size: its plastic screen coating. Plastic is often used in matte finish laptops, to scatter reflections. But this is a glossy screen, telling us weight is the issue here. Glass is the usual choice, but glass isn’t that light.
The plastic film is also far less rigid than glass, causing reflections to distort at the corners a little. And if there’s meant to be a reflection-busting coating here, it’s not a very good one. There’s also no touchscreen, and the hinge only folds back to around 130 degrees, to stop the thing tumbling off your knees through weight imbalance.
Like the flexy lid and bottom panels, the plastic surface is one you’ll have to suck up for the sake of low weight. But does the LG Gram 16 have a high quality screen with plenty of space that you can use outdoors? Absolutely.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Textured glass touchpad
Two-level backlight
1.65mm key travel
The LG Gram 16’s keyboard fills out the appeal of this laptop for us. We type all day, every day, more or less. Keyboard quality matters, and this is a keyboard made for that sort of work.
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Key travel is excellent, and not just if you limit your comparisons to ultra-light laptops. The keyboard plate feels rigid, even if – sure – you can get it to flex slightly under significant finger pressure. And springy resistance offers good feedback with each depress.
We also like that LG has thinned-down the NUM pad, which lets the main set of keys sit more towards the centre of the laptop. Being shunted too far to the left rarely feels good. Here there’s just a mild lurch leftwards. Think universal healthcare, not a state-led redistribution of all wealth.
The LG Gram 16 also has a two-level backlight and a fingerprint scanner hidden in the power button, just above the NUM pad.
Plenty of space in the keyboard plate leaves plenty of room for a giant touchpad. This thing is huge – and you probably can’t appreciate it from photos alone, where it seems in proportion with the rest.
The LG Gram 16’s touchpad has a smooth glass surface, zero floaty wobble, and an easy-to-depress yet well-defined clicker. It’s on the loud side, but that’s it for negative points to note.
A larger laptop opens the doors to a different approach to the keyboard. But apparently it doesn’t allow for a better webcam. The LG Gram 16 has the same sort of stogy 720p video call camera we see in most other high-end laptops.
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Its speakers aren’t even close to those of the MacBook Pro 16 either. LG uses familiar-sounding drivers with just the tiniest hint of low-frequency output and only moderate max volume. Their tone is pleasant, we could watch a movie using them happily enough, but it would be good to see LG improve this area in future generations.
The main grilles for the treble drivers also sit on the underside, giving them just a couple of millimetres of clearance provided by the tiny rubber feet. Put the LG Gram 16 on a thick carpet or your bed and the treble is attenuated, although it does seem impossible to block the sound fully, which is good.
Performance
Intel i7-1165G7 processor
16GB LPDDR4X RAM
1TB NVMe SSD
The LG Gram 16 is an Intel Evo laptop. This is a new standard introduced by Intel to make laptops with its processors seem more attractive than those with AMD or Apple CPUs. It’s marketing, but not useless marketing, as it means you know you get standards like Thunderbolt 4, an 11th Gen processor, and at least nine hours of battery life (if the screen is a 1080p one).
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Our Gram 16 has Intel’s Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 1TB of very fast SK Hynix SSD storage.
Some CPU overclockers who design their own water cooling systems will disagree, but we think this is enough to make the LG Gram 16 a viable desktop replacement for the vast majority of people.
Windows 10 feels great, there’s more than enough power to run apps like Photoshop well. So why would you buy a MacBook Pro 16 with a more power consuming 9th Gen CPU? Or a much heavier Windows laptop with an Intel Core i7-10750H?
The top-end Mac has around 60 per cent additional CPU power, in part because it has an “i9” equivalent processor. A Core i7 alternative made for the more traditional desktop-replacing laptop offers around 20 per cent more power, and these processors are designed to hold max power for longer. Because chunky laptops tend to have fans that can shift more air.
But if you’re not sure if the LG Gram 16 has enough power or not, and you don’t use apps that make your current laptop slow down during exports, imports – whatever procedures they do – then it probably does have enough to satisfy.
The LG Gram 16 also gets Intel’s Xe graphics, which is a fantastic addition for a laptop like this. It turns slim laptops from poor gaming machines to at least acceptable ones. GTA V? No problem. The Witcher 3? Sure, even at 1080p if you play with the settings a bit. Alien Isolation runs well at just below Full HD resolution with a mix of Medium and High settings.
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Absolutely loads of stuff is playable with Intel Xe graphics, because it gets to the level of separate entry-level gaming hardware from the last generation. And that’s not too shabby: it’s gaming skills you seem to get ‘for free’. If you buy an LG Gram 16 and find games don’t run as well as you hoped, make sure to try them at different resolutions. Intel Xe graphics chips may have a bit of punch to them, but 2560 x 2600 pixels is a bit much to ask in most console-grade titles.
There’s more good news. The LG Gram 16 is almost silent under all workloads, even if you max out the CPU for half an hour. There is a fan, but it’s barely audible if you play something through the speakers even at 30 per cent volume. This is probably the quietest laptop we’ve reviewed with one of these 11th Gen Core i7 processors. It’s another benefit of all that extra room inside: better airflow.
Battery Life
80Wh battery – up to 22 hour battery life (claimed)
65W charger
LG doesn’t sacrifice battery life for low weight either. More brownie points for LG’s engineers. The Gram 16 has an 80Wh battery, far larger than the 56Wh standard battery of the Dell XPS 15, if smaller than the more power-hungry (and powerful) 100Wh MacBook Pro 16.
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Match that sort of capacity with a processor already fairly light on the battery drain and you are guaranteed good results. The LG Gram 16 lasts roughly 14 hours 30 minutes when streaming video at moderate screen brightness.
LG claims 22 hours, but this is one of those cheeky claims that involves using a benchmark from 2014 – and letting it sit in standby mode half the time.
Still, it’s excellent real-world stamina for light work, and way above the nine hours the Intel Evo”sticker guarantees. That guarantee only applies to a lower screen resolution than you get here too.
Use it with the display maxed and the CPU pushed to its limits the whole time and the LG Gram 16 will last around three hours and 25 minutes. Which still isn’t bad – a gaming laptop wouldn’t give you a third of that.
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Want to know about the LG Gram 16’s connections? There are two Thunderbolt USB-C ports, and one is taken up by the charger while plugged-in. You get two classic USB ports, a microSD slot, a full-size HDMI, and a headphone jack too. So it doesn’t demand you keep a USB adapter handy, and you can plug it right into your TV or a monitor. Bliss.
Best laptop 2021: Top general and premium notebooks for working from home and more
By Dan Grabham
·
Verdict
It’s a wonder the LG Gram concept hasn’t been nicked more times already. The LG Gram 16 is a large-screen laptop that’s genuinely light enough to carry with you everywhere, every day.
There are barely any substantive compromises involved. The LG Gram 16 is as powerful as smaller laptops that weigh more, it lasts as long off a charge as some of the best Intel-powered laptops, and the keyboard is no lightweight either.
You don’t get the ultra-dense metallic feel of some of the smaller-screened alternatives at a similar price. And, sure, the Gram 16 uses a low voltage processor designed to minimise heat and save battery life, not for blistering power. However, it has enough of it to work perfectly as a desktop-replacer for most people.
Sure, a 13-inch laptop is better for some. A more powerful, thicker one will be better for others. But the LG Gram 16 takes some elements from both and, through clever design, makes it work far better than you’d imagine. For the right user it’s a stunning proposition.
Also consider
LG Gram 17
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Want something even bigger? LG has made a 17-inch Gram for a few years now. All the appeals are the same: low weight, good screen, good keyboard. Battery life is slightly shorter as it has a bigger screen and the same battery capacity. But the choice is all about the screen size you’d prefer. We think 16-inch is a more accommodating size for the masses.
Read our review
MacBook Pro 16
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The 16-inch MacBook Pro isn’t really in the same category if you look right up close. It has a more powerful processor and weighs about 800g extra. Oh, and it costs a grand more. Ouch. However, the MacBook seems a more expensive laptop as it has that amazing Apple build, which feels like perfection. The glossy glass screen finish looks better too, making the most of its similarly brilliant colour depth.
Fortnite for the Nintendo Switch is getting a patch that will boost performance in portable and docked modes. Epic Games says the game will run with a more consistent frame rate across the board “with fewer hitches,” though it’s still not 60 frames per second. And while the game will still use dynamic resolution to make visual adjustments on the fly to keep things running as smoothly as possible, the target resolutions in handheld and docked modes have gotten upgrades, too, seeing a 38 percent boost.
In handheld mode, the game has gone from 1000 x 560 up to 1170 x 660, which is closer to the Switch display’s 720p resolution. In docked mode, it’ll go up to 1560 x 880 instead of topping out at 1390 x 780. That’s a little closer to native 1080p docked resolution.
What this means is that the game will look less blurry, a common problem that many third-party ports encounter. The team provided a quick visual sample comparing pre-patch and post-patch sharpness to let you see what it might look like in-game. It’s definitely a noticeable improvement, even if it’s minor. Anyone squeezing more juice out of the aging Switch hardware gets kudos.
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Old screenshot on the left, new on the right.
Lastly, the team says the game will free up 140MB of storage on your console, marking a small reduction in Fortnite’s file size. Companies seem to be prioritizing these kinds of updates these days, and it’s great for people who are still installing games to the Switch’s internal storage (despite microSD cards being extremely affordable).
Despite still being in its relative infancy, Sony’s PlayStation 5 games console is already serving up some stunning gaming experiences. The shift up to more consistent true 4K graphics at both 60Hz and, remarkably, 120Hz is joining forces with wider, better use of high dynamic range and the impressive efforts of Sony’s new 3D Audio sound system to make gaming worlds more immersive and beautiful than ever before.
However, getting the most out of this next-gen console isn’t just a case of plugging the PS5 into your TV and expecting everything to just turn out fine. In fact, between the secondary kit you might need and some of the PS5 set-up tricks you need to familiarise yourself with, getting the maximum impact out of your new console is anything but straightforward.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a comprehensive checklist of everything you need to do if you want to be sure you’re getting the full value from Sony’s new gaming beast. Starting with potentially the most expensive…
Get the right television
The single biggest source of trouble when it comes to the PS5’s new graphics capabilities is the currently messy television market – or more precisely, the confusing world of HDMI connections.
Getting the best picture quality (4K resolution at 120Hz refresh rates with HDR and, following an upcoming update, support for variable refresh rates) out of the PS5 requires a TV’s HDMI ports to support data rates of at least 32Mbps, and that’s something the vast majority of current TVs cannot do.
What’s more, there’s currently no easy labelling system to help you spot TVs that might be compatible with all of the latest gaming features. Even if a TV claims to be compatible with the latest 2.1 version of the HDMI input, that doesn’t guarantee 4K/120Hz/VRR compatibility. All you can do is try and trawl through a TV’s small print/detailed specs to see if 4K/120/VRR are included.
We can get the ball rolling, though, with some sets we already know support all the latest gaming features. For starters, all of LG’s OLED CX, GX, WX, ZX and upcoming C1, G1 and Z1 models feature four HDMIs with full PS5 compatibility. Samsung’s QLED models from 2020 and QLED and Neo QLED TVs for 2021 all have one or two HDMI ports that support all the PS5 features, with 2021 models from the Q95A series upwards carrying four PS5-friendly HDMIs.
At the time of writing, Samsung’s 2020 TVs aren’t able to play PS5 games in 4K 120Hz while retaining HDR. Samsung has stated, though, that this apparent ‘bug’ will be fixed by a PS5 firmware update.
Sony, ironically, has just one series in its 2020 range, the XH9005s, that support all of the PS5’s graphics features, via a single HDMI port. Thankfully, more Sony models will carry the requisite HDMI support in 2021.
Philips and Panasonic haven’t so far launched any TVs with next-gen gaming features, but both brands are set to do so in 2021. Cheaper TVs (and brands) in the UK have so far not embraced next-gen gaming features, but hopefully some will do so this year.
One final point here is that, in theory, the PS5 can support 8K. So if you want to be ready for that, you will need an 8K TV. These are relatively expensive right now, and it doesn’t seem as though 8K PlayStation content is going to become common any time soon.
For more guidance here, check out our rundown of the best gaming TVs you can currently buy.
Make sure you use the right input on your TV
(Image credit: Future)
As noted in the previous section, on some TVs only one or two HDMIs have enough bandwidth to support all of the PS5’s graphics features. So make sure you have your PS5 connected to one that does.
Some TVs help with this by labelling the relevant HDMI(s) as Game or 4K/120, but otherwise, you will need to refer to your TV’s manual.
Use the provided PS5 HDMI cable (or pick a replacement carefully)
(Image credit: HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc)
It’s not just HDMI sockets that need to be able to handle enough data to unlock all of the PS5’s features. HDMI cables also vary in how much data they can carry. So you should stick with the HDMI cable provided with the PS5 where possible, as this is designed to carry all the data the console needs for its maximum performance.
If you really must use a different cable – because the official cable isn’t long enough, for example – look for one that carries the official Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable certification that you can see in the image above.
Make sure your TV HDMI port is set up for high data rates
Most TVs now will automatically switch their HDMI ports to so-called ‘enhanced’ modes for high data rates when a 4K HDR source is detected. There are still some budget brands, though (Hisense, for instance) where you need to manually switch HDMIs from Standard to Enhanced in the TV’s menus. It’s certainly worth checking the settings on your TV for the HDMI that your PS5 is connected to.
Set your TV to Game mode
Almost all TVs have a special Game mode setting that reduces the time a TV takes to produce its images. This can make as much as 100ms of difference, which could be a lifetime, literally, in gaming terms. Your TV might automatically switch into Game mode when the PS5 is detected, but if response times matter with the game you’re playing, you should check that it has.
Note that Game mode settings can reduce some aspects of picture quality with some TVs. So if you’re playing a less reaction-based title, such as an RPG, you may prefer the overall picture quality with Game mode turned off.
Check your PS5’s Video Output screen
In the System Software section of the PS5’s System menu, there’s an option called Video Output Information. This brings up a screen telling you what graphics capabilities the console thinks your TV is capable of handling, based on its ‘handshake’ with your TV’s HDMI port. This screen is handy for checking that your console and TV are talking to each other as you’d expect.
This Video Output Info can be particularly useful if you’re trying to feed your PS5 through an intermediary audio device, such as a soundbar or an AV receiver, and on from that to your TV. Many people forget that the PS5 will read the capabilities of the intermediary device’s HDMIs and determine supported graphics output based on that, rather than reading what your TV is capable of. So unless your audio device has full HDMI 2.1 4K/120/VRR pass-through support (which is currently very rare), it could limit the graphics you experience.
The best way around this is to connect your PS5 directly to your TV, and then use your TV’s ARC/eARC HDMI jack (if it has one) to output digital sound from the TV to your audio equipment.
Setting up your PS5
(Image credit: Sony)
The PS5 is proactive about HDR, prompting you to run through a trio of simple HDR set-up screens whenever you attach it to a new TV. The way the screens work, though, is rather questionable.
Before going through this HDR set-up, it’s worth checking whether your TV has a menu option called HGIG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) – if so, turn it on. This will make sure that your TV doesn’t try and apply its own automatic HDR optimisation (dynamic tone mapping) processes to pictures that you have already optimised via the PS5’s HDR set up system.
Once done, you can crack on with the console’s calibration, but you shouldn’t do exactly as you’re told. Two of the screens ask you to increase the console’s brightness/peak light levels to a point where you can only just see a relatively dark symbol against a white background. The other one asks you to adjust the console’s black level to a point where a lighter symbol against a dark background remains only just visible. In fact, you should adjust each of these screens to the point where the visible symbol just disappears. In other words, the points at which the first square goes completely white and the second completely black is where you want to set the console.
Even then, not all games are designed to work with the PS5 console’s HDR set-up system, preferring instead to use their own internal HDR calibration screens. Examples of these titles include Dirt 5 and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. You should absolutely go through these game-specific calibration processes and it’s worth checking in these cases whether your TV’s HGIG setting (if it has one) is better switched on or off.
Another key aspect of gaming performance that requires care is frame rates. As with HDR, the PS5’s process for adjusting the frame rate a game uses varies from title to title. So with Dirt 5, the game’s own internal graphics options allow you to select whether you prefer to prioritise resolution or frame rates (there’s always a graphical trade off associated with switching from 60Hz to 120Hz). With Call Of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, however, you have to choose in the console’s menus whether you want to prioritise ‘Resolution’ or ‘Performance’ (frame rates) before booting the game if you want to get 120Hz.
This ‘Performance Mode or Resolution Mode’ option, confusingly, is found in the Game Presets section of the Saved Data and Game/App Settings submenu of the PS5 itself.
A further refresh rate option of some sort will likely be added when the PS5 is finally enabled for variable refresh rates.
Choose the right audio options
(Image credit: Sony)
We’ll discuss the PS5’s 3D Audio gaming system shortly. First, though, we should note the mess concerning the PS5’s Dolby Atmos activation options. Specifically the fact that there are two of them: one for streaming apps, and a separate one for the built-in Blu-ray/4K Blu-ray player. The PS5 does not support Dolby Atmos for games.
The first Dolby Atmos option appears in the System/Sound menu, under Audio output. Scroll right to the bottom of this page and you’ll see an Audio Format (Priority) option, that will be set to Linear PCM by default. There’s an option to choose Bitstream (Dolby) or Bitstream (DTS) if you prefer that.
However, when you try and play a 4K or HD Blu-ray disc with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, the console still does not output Dolby Atmos. To make it work you need to press the Options button on your PS5 joystick while playing a film disc, then click the ‘three dots’ icon and choose the Bitstream option under Audio Format.
Unlike Microsoft with its latest Xbox consoles, Sony has decided not to use Dolby Atmos for its premium game audio experience. Instead, it has developed its own new ‘Tempest’ 3D Audio system. It’s up to individual developers whether and how they deploy 3D Audio, but notable titles to use ‘full-on’ versions of it include Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demons Souls.
At the time of writing, the new 3D Audio system can’t be output to any external multi-channel home theatre speaker/AVR system. Currently, it only works via headphones, though Sony has suggested that this will change at some point in the future.
To try out 3D Audio with headphones, first make sure that you have the Enable 3D Audio option in the Audio Output part of the Sound menu activated. Also, when you first use headphones with the PS5, be sure to check out the Adjust 3D Audio Profile option. This plays a ‘babbling brook’ test signal and asks you to pick which of five settings makes the sound feel most at ear level.
You don’t need special headphones to experience the 3D Audio effect – any wired pair will do the job once connected to the DualSense controller – but the quality of the headphones you use certainly impacts how effective 3D Audio sounds.
As you might expect, Sony’s own Pulse 3D wireless gaming headset, which has been designed for the PS5, is particularly effective – though at £90 ($100, AU$150) it certainly isn’t cheap. However, once you start using it that price actually starts to sound more than fair.
For starters, it’s able to deliver the 3D audio effect wirelessly; you don’t need to be tethered to the DualSense controller. It also carries nifty high-sensitivity microphones complete with noise-cancelling technology built into the main headset, rather than in the usual mic ‘arm’, as well as providing buttons for mixing the game sound and chat sound, and for monitoring your own voice.
The Pulse 3D is lightweight and reasonably comfortable, and it does an excellent job of getting both a precise and strikingly large sense of space from the 3D Audio system.
If you want a more luxuriously built wireless headphone option and you’d prefer a dedicated mic arm, Turtle Beach’s Stealth 700 Gen 2 (£130, $150, AU$250) could be up your street. Just bear in mind that while good-looking, great for chatting and more comfortable to wear for epic gaming sessions, they don’t sound quite as punchy as the Sony Pulse 3D models. They can’t be jacked into the DualSense controller when they run out of juice, either, but with an impressive 20 hours of battery life, that shouldn’t be a big problem. Plus you can use them while they’re charging.
If you’re on a tight budget, meanwhile, and don’t mind a wired rather than wireless headset, then the Xiberia V20D (£30) are good value.
For a few other possibilities, check out our Best Gaming Headsets 2021 feature.
Brace yourself
The number of things you need to think about and potentially invest in if you want to unlock the full capabilities of your PS5 is pretty intimidating. Rest assured, though, that Sony’s new console is more than capable of rewarding your effort and expense with truly next-gen thrills. Once you’ve experienced it in full, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
MORE:
Read our full PlayStation 5 review
Considering your next-gen options? Here’s our Xbox Series X review
Check out our list of the best gaming TVs you can currently buy
Pretty much the only wireless headset you should consider if you’re a PS5 gamer
For
Punchy and exciting sound
Convincing 3D audio
Comfortable over long sessions
Against
Mic picks up background noise
Extravagant design
One of the best features of the Sony PlayStation 5 is its support for 3D audio. Sony’s so-called Tempest Engine does all of the hard work so that any standard pair of wired headphones can deliver immersive 3D sound when plugged into the DualSense controller.
But what if you want to go fully wireless? Currently, the only wireless headset compatible with the PS5’s 3D audio feature is this, the official PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset.
Having just one option is rarely a good thing, but the Pulse 3D headset comes from good stock – its predecessor on the PS4 combined excellent core sound quality, excellent comfort and (limited) 3D audio to the tune of a five-star rating.
Comfort
(Image credit: Sony)
Sony has decided to visually tie the Pulse 3D headset to the controversial design of the PS5, opting for the same white finish for the headband as on the faceplates of the console. It is instantly clear that the two products are related, but the headset’s design may be too attention-grabbing to consider using it as a standard pair of headphones when out of the house.
The plastic band also feels a bit cheaper than the brushed metal of the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that can be forgiven because the Pulse 3D headset genuinely is cheaper by some margin. Besides, having now used the headset for several months, there’s no sign of the slightly cheap feel translating into flimsiness. We have no reason to believe that the headset won’t last for many years.
It feels comfortable, too. The earcups are firmer than some headphones, but they create a good seal around the ears and the headband provides just the right amount of pressure. There’s no obvious heat generated around the ears in use, either.
Build
(Image credit: Sony)
The Pulse 3D headset’s controls are located around the edge of the left cup. They include a rocker to adjust the balance between game audio and chat, a switch for turning monitor mode on or off (useful for ensuring you don’t speak too loudly), volume, mute and power on/off. Most button presses are accompanied by an on-screen notification, something you won’t get from third-party headsets.
Sony PS5 Pulse 3D Wireless Headset tech specs
(Image credit: Sony)
Compatibility PS5, PS4 and PC (wireless), Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S (wired)
Wired Yes
Wireless Yes
Surround sound Yes
Battery life 12 hours
Weight 295g
There’s no button to enable or disable the 3D audio feature as there was with the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that’s because the tech is built in more at a system level.
Using the headset wirelessly involves plugging a dongle-like USB transmitter into your PS5 (you can use the socket on the front or rear) and from that point, the console will automatically output sound to the headset whenever you switch it on. Battery life is 12 hours, which isn’t huge by Bluetooth headphone standards but should cover even the longest of gaming sessions. Charging is via USB-C.
As well as the PS5, you can also use the Pulse 3D headset wirelessly with a PC or PS4, and there’s also an included 3.5mm cable for when you run out of batteries or want to use the headset with an Xbox, phone or tablet. The microphone works in wired mode, too, but you only get 3D audio when wirelessly connected to a PS5 or PS4.
The microphone picks up and projects your voice clearly, but it’s also prone to picking up background noise more than most, which will be of concern to anyone who plays online while there are others in the room. We understand why Sony would opt for a slick and minimalist appearance, but an optional stalk mic would be a nice touch.
Sound
(Image credit: Sony)
While you probably won’t be using the Pulse 3D headset primarily as a standard pair of wired stereo headphones, there’s value in benchmarking against models in this class to get a sense of the core sound quality of the headset.
Surprisingly, despite all of the additional tech on board, the Pulse 3D headset more than stands its ground against sub-£100 wired headphones in most areas. There’s energy, enthusiasm and a crispness to the delivery that’s foot-tappingly enjoyable. While some go deeper, there’s still more than enough bass here and it’s punchy and tuneful.
The treble, meanwhile, has a sparkle and zing that never veers into brightness, and the midrange is textured and clear, with vocals delivered directly. Dynamics are decent, too, with the headset able to convey subtle shifts as well as epic crescendos, and there’s more than enough detail for a pair of headphones costing this much.
But they fall down slightly on timing. When music tracks become particularly busy, the Pulse 3D headset struggles to maintain a complete grip on each strand, and that can make these sections a little hard to follow. Luckily, though, this timing issue isn’t apparent when gaming and the generally strong core sound quality translates well when you use the Pulse 3D headset for its intended purpose.
(Image credit: Sony)
Of course, the quality of the 3D effect depends on the way it has been implemented into the game, but opt for Spider-Man: Miles Morales or even PS4 game Ghost Of Tsushima and you get not only a sense of the direction that each sound is coming from, but also how far away it is. The sonic presentation becomes all-enveloping and it’s easy to audibly pinpoint effects.
Switch to Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and the 3D audio gives a real sense of the cavernous nature of the CIA safehouse, the distance of each character as they speak and the echo as their voices hit the interior walls of the warehouse. You get none of this when listening in standard stereo.
Though you can get 3D audio by plugging a pair of standard wired headphones into the DualSense controller, the crispness and precision of the Pulse 3D headset makes for a more engaging and exciting experience than is offered by most similarly-priced wired headphones. It feels as though the 3D audio delivery has been tailored for the official headset – there’s every chance that in some cases it has been – which is a benefit of having just one product on the market.
That’s not to say that the Pulse 3D headset is an adequate replacement for your surround sound speaker package. The Pulse headset is surprisingly accomplished at creating a 3D soundfield, but the placement of effects is even better with a properly calibrated home cinema system. Effects placed directly in front of or behind the listening position are a particular struggle for 3D audio via headphones, which is no issue with physical speakers in those positions.
Verdict
The Pulse 3D Wireless Headset is really the only option here, but it’s also particularly good at what it does. Those slight timing issues aside, it boasts an accomplished core audio performance that can take your gaming to new levels when combined with the PS5’s 3D audio processing.
If you don’t have the money, space or circumstances for a home cinema system, this is pretty much the next best thing as far as PS5 gaming is concerned, and that makes it a great buy.
SCORES
Sound 5
Comfort 5
Build 4
MORE:
Read our guide to the best gaming headsets
Read our Sony PlayStation Platinum Wireless Headset review
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I built a new gaming PC in September to play new games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I figured that picking Intel’s Core i9-10900K and Nvidia’s RTX 3090 would make this machine last for years and offer top tier performance in demanding titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator. I was wrong. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a notorious beast of a game and is quickly becoming the new Crysis test for PCs.
It has struggled to run smoothly above 30fps with all settings maxed out at 1440p on my PC, and even AMD’s Intel-beating Ryzen 9 5950X only improved the situation slightly for some.
Intel’s latest 11th Gen processor arrives with a big promise of up to 19 percent IPC (instructions per cycle) improvements over the existing i9-10900K, and more specifically the lure of 14 percent more performance at 1080p in Microsoft Flight Simulator with high settings. This piqued my curiosity, so I’ve been testing the i9-11900K over the past few days to see what it can offer for Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically.
It’s less than a year after the i9-10900K release, and I’m already considering upgrading to Intel’s new i9-11900K because I’ve found it boosts Microsoft Flight Simulator by 20 percent.
Intel’s Core i9-11900K processor.
The Verge doesn’t typically review processors, so we don’t own dedicated hardware testing rigs or multiple CPUs and systems to offer all of the benchmarks and comparisons you’d typically find in CPU reviews. For those, we’re going to recommend you visit the excellent folks at Tom’s Hardware, KitGuru, or Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry.
Intel’s new Core i9-11900K ships with eight cores, 16 threads, and boosted clock speeds up to 5.3GHz. On paper, that sounds like it would be less powerful than the 10900K with its 10 cores, 20 threads, and boosted clock speeds up to 5.3GHz, but the reality is far more complicated thanks to how games and apps are designed. Most of Flight Simulator currently runs in a main thread that’s often limited by how well your CPU can run single-threaded applications and games.
So in recent years Intel has managed to stay on top with its single-threaded performance, despite AMD offering more cores. That was until AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X managed to beat the final Intel performance advantage late last year. Intel’s new 11th Gen chips are trying to reclaim its traditional advantage.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a good example of where Intel typically has an advantage. It’s also an increasingly rare example of a game that’s very sensitive to your entire system components and not just how good your GPU is at rendering games.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding title on PC.
Intel’s Core i9-11900K does its job well enough here to boost performance by around 20 percent depending on resolution. I’ve tested a variety of flights taking off from different airports and flying over some of the world’s most beautiful locations and the most demanding cities the game has to offer. Everything feels smoother with Intel’s latest chips, but the results aren’t dramatic enough to get me beyond 60fps without stepping some settings down. A flight over Seattle with all the settings maxed out shows a 24-percent performance improvement with the new 11th Gen Core i9 at 1080p and an 18-percent increase at 1440p.
On my i9-10900K PC, I saw average frame rates of 38fps at 1440p and 33fps at 1080p. The Core i9-11900K managed to bump these to 45fps average at 1440p and 41fps average at 1080p. Averages during a particular benchmark don’t always tell the whole story, though. Over the hours I’ve been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ve noticed the game dip and stutter less than before. It’s still not perfect, but it’s certainly smoother overall.
If I dial the game back to high settings, it immediately jumps to a 66fps average at 1440p — demonstrating just how much the ultra settings hit frame rates. I can personally barely notice the difference between high and ultra settings in Microsoft Flight Simulator,so the boost here is noticeable thanks to the smoother gameplay.
I also tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the Cinebench R23 and Geekbench 5 benchmarks. Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw a tiny bump of around 3 percent at both 1080p and 1440p, while the i9-11900K managed some impressive single core performance gains in both Cinebench and Geekbench.
Intel Core i9-11900K benchmarks
Benchmark
Intel Core i9-10900K
Intel Core i9-11900K
% change
Benchmark
Intel Core i9-10900K
Intel Core i9-11900K
% change
Microsoft Flight Simulator (1080p)
33fps
41fps
up 24.2%
Microsoft Flight Simulator (1440p)
38fps
45fps
up 18.4%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p)
176fps
181fps
up 2.8%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1440p)
154fps
159fps
up 3.2%
Cinebench R23 single-thread
1281
1623
up 26.6%
Cinebench R23 multi-thread
14,968
14,826
down 0.94%
Geekbench 5 single-thread
1336
1766
up 32.1%
Geekbench 5 multi-thread
10,709
11,148
up 4%
I should note I was also hoping to do most of my testing with my existing Z490 motherboard, but that didn’t go to plan. I swapped the chip in with the latest BIOS update for 11th Gen processors and found that the system rebooted a few minutes into games without even a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). I wasn’t able to troubleshoot it fully in time for review, but the Asus Maximus XIII Hero (Z590) board supplied by Intel worked just fine.
You should be able to easily use 11th Gen processors with Z490 motherboards, as most manufacturers have already issued BIOS updates to support Intel’s latest processors. Some will even support M.2 NVMe storage using PCIe 4.0 with these latest chips, while others like Asus only support PCIe 4.0 on the Primary PCIe x16 slot with 11th Gen processors.
Intel’s 11th Gen processors finally deliver PCIe 4.0 support, and that’s good news for storage. Manufacturers have started to fully support PCIe 4.0 drives in recent months, with Western Digital, Samsung, GigaByte, and MSI all launching high-speed drives. If you have a compatible PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, the upgrade to 11th Gen processors will certainly be worth it. I’ve managed read speeds of 6729MB/s and write speeds of 5206MB/s using Western Digital’s new SN850 1TB drive. Corsair’s MP600 also manages 4987MB/s read and 4259MB/s write speeds. Using Intel’s older 10th Gen chip, the Corsair drive managed 3484MB/s reads and 3235MB/s writes, so an 11th Gen upgrade improved speeds by more than 40 percent. If you work with a lot of files every day, the upgrade to 11th Gen processors will be worth it for PCIe 4.0 alone.
Western Digital’s SN850 has super fast PCIe 4.0 speeds with Intel’s 11th Gen processors.
I don’t think the Core i9-11900K does enough for me personally to upgrade from a 10900K, but the PCIe 4.0 support would tempt me more if I needed the speeds there. At $550 (if you can find it at this retail price), the Core i9-11900K sits in between AMD’s offerings, being less expensive than the top 5950X and 5900X Ryzen 9 chips and $90 more than the 5800X.
There’s some solid single-thread performance here, and the 11900K and AMD’s 5900X and 5950X all trade blows depending on the games. Intel’s performance improvement will come at a cost of energy efficiency, though. Tom’s Hardware found that the 11900K “sets the new high power mark” in several of its power tests, drawing over 200 watts in the same test that AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X drew 116 watts. If you even need a new CPU, it’s worth considering just how much Intel’s latest chips will influence your energy bills and the games you play.
Whether you decide to upgrade to Intel’s 11th Gen or one of AMD’s chips will probably depend on the games you play and stock availability. A lot of games do a bad job of utilizing multiple cores on CPUs, mostly because console gaming hardware hasn’t offered solid CPU performance and spreading multiple rendering and physics threads across different cores can complicate game design. Intel’s new chips do a better job of handling these single threads to improve performance, but it’s very game-dependent.
For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the general consensus is that the game desperately needs to be moved to DirectX 12 for improvements to multi-core CPU performance. But Intel’s IPC improvements have managed to help until the Direct X 12 update arrives with the Xbox Series X release this summer.
Where Intel might have an advantage over AMD here is availability of chips. It has been increasingly difficult to find AMD’s latest Ryzen processors in recent months, thanks to a global chip shortage. Intel partners have already been accidentally selling some 11th Gen desktop CPUs, which may indicate it will have a steadier supply in the coming weeks.
The winner between Intel and AMD will be the company that can get these chips into the hands of PC gamers eager to upgrade. Much like the GPU market right now, benchmarks don’t matter when the best chip is often the only one you can actually buy.
Bang & Olufsen has announced Beoplay Portal, its first wireless gaming headset. The product maintains the company’s signature sophisticated look, and it has more features than your average headset.
These were created with the Xbox ecosystem in mind, and with a push of its pairing button, they can connect to the Series X, Series S, Xbox One, or to a PC that has the Xbox Wireless adapter plugged into it. Additionally, they support a concurrent connection via Bluetooth 5.1 for other devices (including other consoles if you supply the Bluetooth adapter). This way, you can take calls without totally detaching from game audio.
Similar to the Bose QC35 gaming headset that released last year, the Beoplay Portal look like high-end wireless headphones (and in many ways, act like them, too), and come with a high-end price. These cost $499 and are available now in the black colorway at Best Buy, the Microsoft Store, and through Bang & Olufsen’s site. Two other colors, gray and navy, will be available starting April 29th.
Made for the contemplative gamer.Image: Bang & Olufsen
This model has adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC) and a gaming audio mode that automatically activates when connected wirelessly to a console or when wired via USB-C to a PC (the port through which the headset also gets its charge). These also have a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The Bang & Olufsen app for iOS and Android has some new features that the Beoplay Portal benefits from, like microphone optimization and a game / chat audio balance. The company reports that its “Own Voice” feature allows for voice monitoring while keeping out extraneous noises thanks to its adaptive ANC. These have 40mm drivers with Dolby Atmos support for virtualized surround sound.
A peek at the Bang & Olufsen app’s controls for the Beoplay Portal.Image: Bang & Olufsen
Build quality is another area where Bang & Olufsen is trying to distinguish itself from other gaming headsets. The memory foam ear pads are wrapped in lambskin leather, and it uses bamboo fiber textile to cover the headband padding. Elsewhere, there are a few anodized aluminum details on the Portal, like the touch-sensitive discs on the outside of each ear cup that are used to control them. Impressively, the company says the headphones weigh 282 grams, which is lighter than the mostly plastic Xbox Wireless Headset that, until now, I considered to be lightweight at 312g.
This gaming headset can last up to 12 hours per charge when you’re connected through both Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless protocol, and using the active noise cancellation feature. If you’re just using Bluetooth and noise cancellation, Bang & Olufsen says you can expect up to 24 hours of use.
Given the high asking price, I’m skeptical that these will be worth the cost for most people — especially those who intend to use them exclusively for gaming. It seems like a better value if you want to use them as your everyday headphones, too.
The gray colorway shown here won’t release until late April.Image: Bang & Olufsen
I’m also skeptical about the “virtual boom arm” the Beoplay Portal employs instead of a traditional articulating boom mic. It says its beamforming microphones allow for “crystal clear” conversations, and help to amplify your voice while filtering out sounds in the background. This is something I’ll need to test to see if it’s as good as Bang & Olufsen claims.
Do you need a $500 gaming headset? Probably not. While there are plenty of differences in terms of features and build quality, most people should be suited well by Microsoft’s $100 Xbox Wireless headset. But I’ll be reviewing these to see for myself what five times that amount can get you in a gaming peripheral.
Sony is officially closing its PlayStation Store for the PlayStation 3 on July 2nd, with the store shuttering for Vita devices on August 27th. The shutdowns mean you’ll no longer be able to purchase digital copies of games or DLC for the PS3 and Vita. Sony is also removing the remaining purchase functionality for its PlayStation Portable (PSP) on July 2nd.
Thankfully, you’ll still be able to download and play previously purchased games, videos, and media content. The only thing that’s changing, at least for now, is that you won’t be able to purchase PS3, PS Vita, or PSP digital games and videos. In-game purchases will also stop after the stores are closed.
You’ll also still be able to purchase cross-buy content following the closures, allowing you to access the PS3 and PS Vita / PSP versions of games that come with cross-buy support.
Sony’s PS Vita.
News of the closures originally surfaced last week from TheGamer, and many had feared the closures would prevent people from downloading games to their devices. That’s clearly not the case, which is good news if you still own a PS3, PSP, or Vita and you want to continue accessing your games. The only thing that’s really changing here is you won’t be able to buy new digital games and content unless the games have cross-buy support.
Sony’s PS3 originally launched in November 2006, and more than 80 million units of the console were sold in total. The Vita didn’t fare as well, with over 10 million units sold in total, but the PSP was a hit with more than 80 millions sold during its 10-year lifetime.
Game Boy mining Bitcoin (Image credit: stacksmashing/YouTube)
Nothing is safe from cryptocurrency mining — not even 32-year old tech. YouTuber stacksmashing (via TweakTown) has successfully repurposed his old Game Boy to mine Bitcoin. The mod won’t turn you into a millionaire overnight, but it does prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
First of all, the modder used a standard USB flash card to load the his compiled ROMs onto the Game Boy. If you’re interested in the software aspect of the project, the YouTuber explains it pretty thoroughly in his video.
An internet connection is one of the most basic requirements for mining cryptocurrencies. Since the Game Boy lacks wireless connectivity, the handheld gaming console is unable to communicate with the Bitcoin network without the help of a middle man. That’s where the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico comes in to the rescue.
The YouTuber modified a Nintendo Game Link Cable to serve as the highway for communication. The problem is that the voltage requirements for the Raspberry Pi Pico and the Nintendo Game Link Cable are completely different. The Raspberry Pi Pico operates at 3.3V, while the Nintendo Game Link Cable utilizes 5V logic levels. As a result, the modder implemented a simple four-channel, bi-directional logic shifter to do the voltage translation.
The bi-directional functionality isn’t necessary, but it’s what the stacksmashing had at hand. The final setup finds the Game Boy connected to the Raspberry Pi Pico through the logic shifter with the Pico attached to a PC, which is where the Internet connection comes from.
The Game Boy is equipped with an 8-bit Sharp LR35902 processor clocked at 4.18 MHz. The chip puts up a performance of approximately 0.8 hashes per second. For comparison, modern ASIC miners typically offer up to 100 terahashes per second. Therefore, the Game Boy is only 125 trillion times slower.
The calculations reveal that it would only take a couple quadrillion years to eventually mine a single Bitcoin. On the bright side, ASIC miners are power-hungry monsters, while the Game Boy runs on four triple-A batteries.
If you are looking to buy Microsoft’s most powerful console to date, the Xbox Series X, you can try your luck again right now at Best Buy. The retailer also has the more affordable, all-digital Series S available for $299.99.
Due to the high demand, we expect the supply to run out very quickly, so don’t hesitate if you’re hoping to score one.
Xbox Series X
$500
Prices taken at time of publishing.
The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s flagship console, serving as its most powerful (and biggest) option that costs $499.99. While the Series S is aimed at smooth 1440p performance, the Series X is focused on fast 4K gameplay.
$500
at Best Buy
Xbox Series S
$300
Prices taken at time of publishing.
The Xbox Series S costs $299.99. Compared to the Series X, it’s far smaller, less powerful, and it has half the amount of SSD storage built in. It also lacks a disc drive.
$300
at Best Buy
Once you’ve secured your next-gen Xbox, you might want to buy some additional items, such as games to play on your new console. I strongly recommend picking up a subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes a wide array of first- and third-party titles, including a slew of Bethesda games following Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax.
Of course, if you plan to share this console with a loved one, I also recommend buying an extra controller, as the console only comes with one controller.
While on the topic of buying new stuff, it’s not a bad idea to get a TV that will take advantage of next-gen hardware. If you have money to spend, Best Buy is currently selling a Vizio 65-inch 4K OLED TV for $1,500 — that is $500 off its usual price.
Vizio 4K OLED TV
$1,200
$1,300
8% off
Prices taken at time of publishing.
Vizio is a newcomer to the OLED TV space, but it’s using the same beautiful LG panel as everyone else — and pricing it for much less. The Vizio OLED should be a perfect fit for either the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, thanks to its fluid 120Hz 4K gaming capabilities, and the perfect blacks will make your Netflix content look great, too.
You’ve probably seen the acronym “DLSS” appearing in more gaming and tech stories recently. You might know that it’s an Nvidia graphics thing, and that it might be coming to the new Nintendo Switch console that’s rumored to release later in 2021, according to a report from Bloomberg. But, really, what is it, and why does it matter?
DLSS stands for deep learning super sampling, and it’s a way for Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards to work smarter, not necessarily harder, by running games at a lower resolution, then using dedicated AI cores to improve visual quality with less of the usual performance cost. The deep learning component works on the fly to make your game look as if you haven’t lowered its resolution at all. This feature only works with supported PC games, of which there are over 20 at the time of publishing, including Cyberpunk 2077, Fortnite, Monster Hunter World, Control, and others.
On PC, the technique has proven itself to yield a sizable performance boost. Especially with the advent of ray tracing tech, DLSS has been a boon for letting gamers experience all of the latest visual effects on high-resolution displays without having to shell out an exorbitant amount for a GPU. It’s available for GPUs that (nominally) cost just a few hundred dollars, like the RTX 3060, as well as the previous-gen RTX 20-series cards (not that you can find any of them available right now). For a device like the Nintendo Switch that can’t cram in that much horsepower to begin with, you can imagine why it might be an amazing fit.
Nintendo’s current Switch uses a shrunken-down version of Nvidia’s Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip from 2015. Most games run at sub-1080p resolution when docked and usually less than the 720p resolution of the Switch’s display when in portable mode. Developers for the Switch are already used to making some sizable compromises to get their games working well on the portable console.
Doom Eternal running on the Switch.
Panic Button’s porting work on Doomand Doom Eternal, for instance, heavily rely on visual tricks like dynamic resolution, motion blur, and lower-fidelity textures to mask the Switch’s inherent weaknesses compared to other consoles — and to get them running at a playable 30 frames per second even on the Switch’s 720p screen, much less 4K. Other games struggle to come close to rendering at that resolution — Wolfenstein: Youngblood usually runs at a 540p resolution in portable mode, according to Digital Foundry — and even Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda:Breath of the Wild has notable slowdown, though the company has a few other shining examples that manage 60 frame-per-second gameplay.
With all of this context in mind, the recent rumors that the next Switch will tap DLSS to help it avoid those compromises has me excited. We don’t know whether Nvidia truly plans to stick an RTX-style graphics chip with Tensor Core AI processors into a Switch just to achieve DLSS, but doing so would make the next generation of Switch games (and perhaps preexisting games) look and run much better, whether in portable mode or displaying a higher resolution while docked.
Of course, games on the Nintendo Switch would likely need to be individually patched to support DLSS, like the fairly small amount of games on PC have been. If games that have DLSS support on PC get a Switch port, will that DLSS work carry over, I wonder? Or, unlikely as it seems, can Nintendo and Nvidia work together to make every game compatible with DLSS in some way to ensure boosted performance across the board?
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
DLSS 2.0 is the current version that’s available on PC, and it brought better performance and efficiency of RTX AI cores versus the first iteration. TweakTowncites a YouTube video from channel Moore’s Law is Dead claiming that a newer DLSS 3.0 version could be in development for GPUs built with the latest Ampere architecture. It’s said to automatically deliver AI enhancements to any game with temporal anti-aliasing (a technique that removes the flickering aliased edges of textures — especially when the camera is in motion), not just the games that have been patched for support. If true, it could make Nintendo’s job a lot easier bringing DLSS features to more games.
To get a sense of how the next Switch could benefit from DLSS without requiring immensely powerful hardware, check out this informative video below that the folks at Digital Foundry put together. It focuses on the game Control running with DLSS enabled at different resolutions. The bit that really stood out to me was when it showed just how good DLSS can make a 540p rendering of the game look when reconstructed into a 1080p image with ray tracing effects and everything set to ultra settings. I’ve time-stamped the video to that exact location.
If that’s what a PC can do with 540p, a Switch with DLSS might not need a huge overhaul to make its own collection of sub-720p games look a lot better than they do today, particularly on the Switch’s relatively small screen where DLSS’s minor wrinkles might be even easier to forgive than they are on a PC monitor. If it gets additional graphical muscle, it’s not a stretch to imagine today’s games competently running at a simulated 4K when docked to a TV as well. This kind of thing would be perfect to showcase at the launch of the sequel to Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, or Metroid Prime 4.
Since the original Nintendo Switch launched, 4K TVs have become more widely adopted. So, it’ll make sense if Nintendo wants to use hardware that’ll look better on modern televisions. And whatever the company chooses to put in its next Switch, it’ll ultimately still be a mobile processor with limitations compared to what the likes of the Xbox Series X and PS5 can do. Though, hopefully, it will be enough to ensure that future Switch games look far better than they currently do for years to come.
More than a decade ago, in a lifetime before The Verge, Monster Hunter on the PSP was my commuting game of choice. I’d spend a couple of hours a day tackling solo quests as my train wound through the Japanese countryside, then compare loot with friends late at night as we teamed up to take on the monsters we couldn’t beat alone.
2018’s Monster Hunter World couldn’t hope to replicate that experience. World sought to reimagine the series as a primarily online adventure that took advantage of powerful hardware — and it was a huge success, bringing Monster Hunter to a far bigger Western audience than it ever managed before. World was a great game, and Capcom clearly moved Monster Hunter in the right direction. But for me, something was missing.
That’s where Monster Hunter Rise comes in. It’s a Nintendo Switch-exclusive game that builds upon World’s advances — but now you can take it on the go.
Monster Hunter Rise isn’t altogether a new idea. The last time a major new Monster Hunter game first came to a home console — 2009’s Monster Hunter 3 for the Wii — it was coming off the huge success of an earlier PSP release. Monster Hunter 3 brought a lot of advances to the series, but a straight port to the less powerful PSP wouldn’t have been practical for technical reasons, so Capcom adapted much of its elements and contents into a new PSP game called Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. It ended up being the bestselling game in the series, at least until World came along, and it was the version that ate up the most time for me on those train rides.
That’s basically what Capcom has done with Monster Hunter Rise. It’s not a Switch port of World — it’s better. Almost all of what made World a huge leap forward for the series is here, and Rise evolves the formula further while operating within a scope that makes more sense for the Switch. The result is an all-new game that feels at home on its portable hardware instead of having been compromised to fit.
Monster Hunter Rise might be the most technically impressive Switch game I’ve seen to date; it’s certainly the most impressive one that isn’t made by Nintendo. Running on Capcom’s RE Engine, the character models and monsters look very close to those of World — especially on the small Switch screen. Capcom has done an excellent job of preserving World’s essence and style on less powerful hardware.
The biggest concessions are the environments. The stages feel more like old-school Monster Hunter games than they did in World, with less elaborate designs and fewer graphical flourishes like dense foliage. Unlike the older games, though, the subsections aren’t broken up by loading screens, which helps Rise play similarly to World’s more free-flowing style.
In fact, Rise goes even further in that regard. Traversing around the environments is faster than ever thanks to two new elements: a pet dog called a Palamute that joins you in battle and lets you ride on its back, and a tool called the Wirebug that can be used to zip up walls and hop onto monsters, occasionally even controlling them in large-scale confrontations with other beasts. What Rise’s stages lack in complexity they add in verticality, and while your targets are marked on the map from the start this time around, you’ll often find yourself figuring out how to meet them on their level.
Rise feels even better suited for portable play than the earlier games, since you’ll never find yourself wandering around aimlessly in search of a monster. Other alterations save seconds that will add up over hundreds of hours — you now exhaust the supply of resources from a mining outcrop or a bonepile with a single button tap, for example.
Otherwise, Rise is a typical Monster Hunter game. It’s a fairly complex action RPG where you’re choosing one of several weapon classes with which to hunt increasingly dangerous beasts, harvesting them for materials that you can use to craft new weapons and armor to take on even more dangerous beasts. The game is certainly an acquired taste, and I’m not sure the constant barrage of tutorial pop-ups explaining obscure mechanics will be as helpful for newcomers as Capcom seems to think they will.
What will help, though, is that Monster Hunter Rise just isn’t very difficult compared to other games in the series, even World. I found the “village” quests that progress the story and get you to the endgame unusually easy — it’s like they’re the actual tutorial. I’m experienced with the series, but by no means an incredible player, yet I dispatched most new monsters much faster than usual on my first try. The village quests are never the true meat of any Monster Hunter game, so I think it’s fine for them to serve as a fun campaign that anyone can blast through.
There’s also a series of more challenging “hub” quests available from the start, and those should dispel the notion that Rise isn’t focusing on existing fans. But it’s hard to review any Monster Hunter game ahead of its launch because I’ve had very little time to test it online, let alone see how the player base takes to its most challenging content. Rise’s longevity will largely be down to its endgame design and how Capcom handles future updates, neither of which can be known at this point.
At least for now, Rise looks like a more solid package in terms of content than World was at launch before its major Iceborne expansion. It’s certainly not lacking in monsters, and the variety is broader than what World offered, with several old favorites and some imaginative new designs.
Monster Hunter Rise is the most accessible game in the series to date, and it might well prove to be the best. I’m not willing to call that just yet, because a lot will depend on how its post-launch support turns out. But Capcom absolutely has the bones of a classic here already. Almost everything that was great about World is also true of Rise, unless you want to run it at 4K / 60fps. If you do (and I do, too), there’s a PC version coming next year.
It feels like Monster Hunter is coming full circle with Rise. The series started on the PS2, sure, but it only really became a cult phenomenon when it moved to portables, and that’s where it’s now returned after World brought it to an even bigger global audience. You don’t need to have a lengthy commute to appreciate how Monster Hunter benefits from a portable format.
One of the joys of the Switch is that it allows you to slot in game time when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to, even if it’s as basic a situation as your living room being occupied. Monster Hunter has always had that just-one-more-quest impulse for series fans, and with its breezy new design and portable form factor, Rise should see a lot more converted to the cause.
Monster Hunter Rise is available for the Nintendo Switch today.
(Pocket-lint) – The PlayStation 4 is a superb console, and over the course of its lifespan it’s played host to some of the finest games ever released, so whether you’ve had a PS4 for ages or you’re picking up a new one you’ve got a lot to look forward to.
However, one problem the console can have is overheating – especially with games released in the last couple of years, it can really struggle and whirr its fans super loudly to keep up. That can be distracting, so getting hold of a cooling system can be a really good idea to keep the noise down. Here are some of the very best options.
The best cooling systems for your PlayStation 4
OIVO
OIVO PS4 Stand
A great stand that brings cooling alongside controller charging and storage.
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If you’re going to get a cooling stand for your PS4, you might as well go the whole way and get a stand that does more than one thing.
This great unit from OIVO has fans to keep air flowing through your PS4 at all times, but also a pair of really handy docks to charge your controllers while you’re not using them. Plus, at the back of the stand there are handy slots for game storage, making it a real power station.
Beboncool
Beboncool PS4 Stand Cooling Fan
Another almost equally impressive stand.
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If you want a stand that offers the same rough capabilities as the one above, but with a slightly bigger and sturdier foortprint, this could be a great choice.
Beboncool’s stand has cooling as well, alongside the game storage, so they’re pretty neck-and-neck in terms of what they offer – it might just come down to your taste in how they look!
Kootek
Kootek Vertical Stand
If you want a smaller stand, this could work nicely.
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For those looking for a slightly smaller stand, and who don’t really mind about game storage, this option from Kootek is a great choice.
It’s got fans to keep your PS4 cool as you game, plus two controller storage slots, and those will also charge your gamepads. However, it’s much smaller than those above so is perfect if you’re shorter on space.
Pecham
PECHAM Vertical Stand for PS4
Two controller chargers and a great fan system.
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Another smaller stand is offered up by Pecham, which has also managed to fit in both controller charging and PS4 cooling.
You’ll get quiet but noticeable cooling for the PS4 itself, and room to store and charge two controllers as well, on a stand that’s a little bigger than the one from Kootek above.
Elecgear
ElecGear External USB Cooler
Great for those looking to keep things slimmer.
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This great little device from ElecGear is a useful option for anyone who doesn’t want a stand – it’s simple extra fans and clips onto the side of your console.
That makes it perfect if your TV and console setup is already finely tuned, and it hardly adds any bulk to the PS4 at all. Just be sure to pick up the right version according to what console you own!
Kingtop
Kingtop PS4 Universal Controller Charger
A great final option, with solid cooling.
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Our final case is another one that offers two controller charging points and a simple cooling system using fans.
That makes it very much standard, although it has a fairly nicely designed look and feel and doesn’t take up too much space.
(Pocket-lint) – If you want to make a worthwhile difference to the sound of your TV, you’re spoilt for choice where soundbars at the lower end of the budget scale are concerned. Equally, if you feel your games console experience requires a sonic rocket, there are numerous LED-happy gaming soundbars ready to do a job for you.
But what if you want both – and you want something small and discreet enough to cause minimal disruption to your viewing and/or gaming environment(s) at the same time? Your shortlist has suddenly become quite a lot shorter.
You can now add the Panasonic SC-HTB01 – or Soundslayer, as it’s also rather excitably known – to your shortlist, though. It may be physically small, but it’s big on performance.
Obviously, the big news is how small the Panasonic is. It’s perfectly proportioned to sit discreetly underneath your TV or games monitor, and at this weight it’s hardly a burden to move it from one position to another. But it’s still big enough to be fitted with reasonably sized speaker drivers.
‘Design’ doesn’t really seem to be something that’s happened to the SC-HTB01 – rather, its drivers and accompanying electronics have been put into a housing which has then been mostly covered with acoustic cloth. Its plastics feel ordinary. It’s basically not much to look at – although it’s easy to imagine Panasonic thinking that’s entirely the point.
‘Bland’ isn’t the same as ‘badly made’ though – this, after all, is Panasonic we’re talking about. The Soundslayer may not be visually stimulating, but it’s properly screwed together and feels made to last.
Features
Decoding: Dolby Atmos & DTS:X supported
Modes: Game, Standard, Music, Cinema
4K HDR passthrough supported
There is a brief suite of physical connections on the rear of the soundbar. A couple of HDMI sockets – one input, one ARC-enabled output – a digital optical input, and a USB socket (for updates only).
Panasonic
Via HDMI, the Soundslayer can handle 4K HDR content as well as multi-channel audio up to a hefty 24bit/192kHz standard – so Dolby Atmos and/or DTS:X soundtracks present no problems. Wirelessly connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 2.1 – hands up who remembers when that was the cutting edge of wireless streaming technology?
The SC-HTB01’s equaliser (EQ) presets let you know where it thinks it belongs. Presets for ‘music’, ‘cinema’ and ‘standard’ attest to its flexibility – but within the ‘game’ preset there are sub-settings for ‘RPG’, ‘FPS’ and ‘enhanced voices’ (which is excellent when listening at very low volume levels).
Interface
Included remote control
It’s not a problem, in and of itself, that the Panasonic has no voice assistant or control app. It’s not a problem that everything, from subwoofer level and overall volume level to EQ preset and Bluetooth pairing, is taken care of by a full-function remote control handset.
Panasonic
No, the problem is that the remote control seems to have been selected on the basis that there were no more affordable options available. It’s small, hard, thin, unpleasant to hold, and very nearly as unpleasant to use.
Behind that mild-mannered exterior, two 40mm full-range drivers and two 14mm tweeters face forwards. On the top of the ‘bar there’s an upward-firing 80mm bass driver, alongside passive low-frequency radiators. Panasonic is striving for a ‘2.1’ channel effect with this five-driver layout, and has fitted the SC-HTB01 with 80 Watts of power with which to make it happen.
Panasonic
There’s also a bass reflex slot at the front of the cabinet, just in case that passive radiator doesn’t quite pull its weight. Naturally, this upward-firing configuration means the Panasonic shouldn’t be positioned with surfaces directly above it.
So how does all that come across? Well, if you’ve been using the audio system integrated into your TV or your monitor up until now, the SC-HTB01 will thrill you with the scale and drive of its sound.
The combination of judicious speaker driver placement and careful EQs means the Panasonic sounds bigger – and in every direction – than seems likely from a soundbar this tiny. There’s no mistaking its presentation for that of a dedicated Dolby Atmos soundbar, naturally, but the Soundslayer’s soundstage is taller, deeper and (especially) wider than it would seem to have any right to be.
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At the top of the frequency range it carries plenty of detail, and gives treble sound lots of substance to go along with their considerable bite. Further down, the midrange is nicely shaped and projects forward well – even without the intervention of the EQ presets.
It’s down at the bottom of the frequency range, though, that the Panasonic both triumphs and fails. This isn’t the first soundbar to have mistaken ‘overconfident bass’ for ‘excitement’ – and, to be absolutely fair, the SC-HTB01 controls the low-end stuff pretty well. It certainly doesn’t drone and doesn’t blossom into the midrange, either. But it definitely overplays its hand where bass is concerned – ‘punchy’ is one thing, but being repeatedly punched while trying to watch TV or concentrate on a game is quite another.
Panasonic
The big, bassy emphasis doesn’t help the Panasonic’s overall detail retrieval, which is a pity. It’s possible to independently adjust the ‘subwoofer’ level using the remote control, but the effect is not so much to reduce the soundbar’s outright wallop as to rob it of its dynamism.
That’s unfortunate, because the Soundslayer ordinarily has more than enough dynamism to maximise any game soundtrack you care to mention. It can put a huge amount of distance between ‘stealth’ and ‘assault’, which adds a lot to the gaming experience.
It works well for movies, too – when the soundtrack demands a shift from ‘quiet and contemplative’ to ‘massive attack’, the Panasonic relishes the opportunity. It’s so much more accomplished than the sound of your average TV, and consequently far more involving.
The temptation, naturally, is to go all-in on the volume – but that would be a mistake. The Soundslayer’s tonal balance, which at moderate volume levels is pretty well judged, takes a definite turn for the ‘hard and unforgiving’ if you decide to press on. Treble sounds get edgy and thin, and the bass stops punching and starts slapping. Stick to reasonable levels, in other words – it’s not only your neighbours who will thank you.
Verdict
Keep its limitations in mind and there’s lots to like about the Panasonic SC-HTB01. It may not quite be the ‘soundslayer’ it purports to be, but it’s a convenient and capable way of giving your games and movies a bit more sonic oomph. As long as you don’t get carried away with volume, anyhow.
Also consider
Yamaha
Yamaha SR-C20A
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Slightly bigger than the Panasonic, slightly less expensive too, but designed to do much the same job. It is similarly unruly when the volume get big, too, but overall is probably a marginally better bet.
Have you ever wanted to play a sound effect when someone enters the door? Using a Raspberry Pi, some speakers, and some ingenuity you can make your life closer to one of my favourite shows – Seinfeld. This Raspberry Pi project is great for beginners and introduces you to the concept of using the GPIO (general purpose input-output) pins.
If you’re not a Seinfeld fan, you can always replace the audio with another sound of your choosing. Here’s how to build a Raspberry Pi machine that plays a custom sound effect when a door is opened.
What You’ll Need For This Project
Raspberry Pi 4 or Raspberry Pi 3 with power adapter
8 GB (or larger) microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS. See our list of best microSD cards for Raspberry Pi.
Desktop speakers or a megaphone with a 3.5mm input and 3.55mm cable
Speaker wire, any gauge, at least a few feet in length
Aluminum foil
Electrical tape
Male to female jumper cables (2)
Wire strippers or scissors
Monitor or Projector with HDMI and power cables. (Optional)
How to Turn Raspberry Pi into an Electronic Door Chime
Before you get started, get your Raspberry Pi set up. If you haven’t done this before see our article on how to set up a Raspberry Pi for the first time or how to do a headless Raspberry Pi install (without the keyboard and screen). For this project, we recommend a headless Raspberry Pi install.
1. Install the lower-level dependencies we need to play audio files and make our code run by entering the following commands in a terminal window.
2. Set the 3.5mm audio output to be the default audio output in raspi-config. You do this by launching raspi-config (entering sudo raspi-config at the command prompt) and navigating to System Options -> Audio -> Headphones 1. The pi allows for audio to be outputted to either the 3.5mm analog output, or over the HDMI port. If you do not have a monitor attached, Headphones may be the only option.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
3. Enable auto-login in raspi-config by navigating to System Options > Boot / Auto Login > Console Autologin. When the raspberry pi restarts, it will automatically log in (which we’ll need to run our scripts).
4. Click finish to exit the raspi-config menu, and reboot your raspberry pi (either through the prompt, or the console).
sudo reboot
5. From your home directory, clone the sample code using git.
6. Plug your speakers into your Raspberry Pi, and test them by playing your audio file. You should hear sound from your speakers.
mpg321 /home/pi/doorbell/audio/audio_0.mp3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
7. Adjust your pi’s volume with the alsamixer command, or if your external speakers have a volume knob, on there too. Use the arrow keys to adjust the volume, and Ctrl + C to exit.
alsamixer
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
8. Test the script. Connect one jumper wire to board pin 12 (GPIO pin 18), and a second to ground. Then run the python command below. Once it’s running, touch (short) the two jumper wires together for a second or two, then release them. If all goes successfully, the console will output “playing audio_0.mp3” and you should hear the sound over your speakers.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
python3 /home/pi/doorbell/app.py
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
9. Download or copy a few short mp3 files you’re looking to play. In my case, I took a few recordings from YouTube and copied them over to the Raspberry Pi into the audio directory using SCP. However, I could have also used Chromium on the Pi to download or copied files over using VNC or FTP. Any mp3 files placed in /home/pi/doorbell/audio directory will be randomly selected when the door opens or closes.
10. Tape a small, rectangular piece of aluminum foil to the door.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
11. Cut a piece of speaker wire long enough to stretch from your Raspberry Pi to the door.
12. Strip the wire on both ends
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
13. Tape one end to the door frame so that when closed, the piece of aluminum foil closes the circuit. It is also possible to use a reed switch instead of aluminum foil.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
14. Connect the other ends of the speaker wire to the jumper cables using solder or electrical tape.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
15. Add the script to /etc/rc.local so it runs automatically when the Raspberry Pi restarts.
sudo nano /etc/rc.local
# Add the following line before the last line (exit 0)
python3 /home/pi/doorbell/app.py &
16. Restart the Raspberry Pi
17. Test your project by opening or closing the door.
If all goes well, you should hear a random sound from the audio directory.
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