Indice dei contenuti per February 2018 in Maximum PC

MP3 vs. FLAC vs. Ogg Vorbis If you’re ill-of-ears, you may never have considered the point in a serious audio smackdown between (arguably) the three major formats in digital tune management. But listen up: There’s a lot to learn here. That dusty folder full of MP3s from the original Napster days? That’s not the way music was meant to be heard, stored, or shared. So, let’s pull apart those formats, and find the wins and losses in various categories, all while keeping the underwater garble of WMA at arm’s length, conveniently ignoring the fact that it has a lossless version that’s actually not the worst thing we’ve ever heard. ROUND 1 File Size For the most part, this factor isn’t a major concern now that we’re filling every available inch…

THE BATTLE for VRAM dominance needs settling this year. With both Nvidia and AMD utilizing GDDR5X and HBM 2.0 in their product lineups, which is best, and what will we see on the GPUs of tomorrow? Each has its advantages and disadvantages. HBM 2.0 takes up less PCB space than typical GDDR5X stacks, runs at 1.2V, has an incredibly low latency, puts out an astonishing amount of bandwidth (242GB/s per stack versus GDDR5/X’s 44GB/s), and, more importantly, features Pseudo Channel mode, which splits a memory channel in two, with one pseudo channel dedicated to memory reads, and the other to writes. Think of it as multithreading, but for memory, and solely dedicated to read and writes, as opposed to processes. That said, it has issues: It’s expensive, in short supply…

Depending on your motivation for coaxing an old game back into operation, simply getting it up and running on your current machine might not satisfy. A 4K HDR display might do wonders for your Steam library, but it only serves to highlight the shortcomings of a game designed to run at 640x480. And there’s something a bit strange about playing Quake with an RGB mechanical keyboard and a wireless mouse, when all’s said and done. When you feel that the modern technology ensconcing your old software is detracting from the experience, there’s only one thing for it: a retro gaming PC build. A word of warning, though: This can be costly if you’re not smart about it. Perhaps it’s not a big surprise that giant beige boxes with Pentium IIs…

YOU’LL NEED THIS WORDPRESS INSTALLATION In addition to the obvious. FREE PLUGINS All referenced in the tutorial. SSL CERTIFICATE Required to switch to HTTPS-only connections. A SELF-HOSTED WORDPRESS SITE—one not hosted on http://wordpress.com—is one of the easiest ways to build and maintain an independent web presence, whether it’s a blog, online magazine, or even an ecommerce store. But one thing that’s often overlooked with WordPress is security. In this tutorial, we’re going to perform a security audit, and enact several additional layers of protection to “harden” your WordPress installation. Not only will you be surprised to learn how vulnerable your WordPress-powered site has been up until now, but you’ll also be relieved to learn that, armed with the right settings and plugins, you can close most of its loopholes. There…

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 10 You need the latest version of the OS, with Microsoft Edge. GHOSTERY Grab this browser extension from www.ghostery.com. MANY OF THE WEBSITES you visit are tracking you by placing small files, called “cookies,” on your computer. This helps them gather information about your browsing habits, and target you with advertisements. Data collection tools (known as “trackers”) can be very intrusive. If you wanted a quote for life assurance, for instance, would you want an insurance website to know that you’d been browsing books on Amazon about quitting smoking? Luckily, a Microsoft Edge browser extension called Ghostery can help stop you being tracked online, blocking communications with such companies, while still enabling you to surf the web. Better yet, it displays a handy purple list of…

PC TECHNOLOGY is pretty mature these days. That particularly applies to monitors. Usually, even a cursory perusal of the spec list gives you a good idea of what to expect. So, it’s not all that often a screen comes along and blows apart your expectations, but that’s exactly what the new Philips BDM4037UW pulls off. Unfortunately, it does so for all the wrong reasons. On paper, it looks similar to its sibling, the BDM4065UC. That screen has been knocking around for a few years, but offers the same 40-inch diagonal and 3840x2160 UHD native resolution. Both panels also leverage VA technology, and Philips claims similar specifications for everything from contrast to pixel response. Indeed, the only really significant differences involve the BDM4037UW’s gentle panel curvature, and the fact that it’s…

VIDEO EDITING is a skill that comes with practice and study, but Adobe seems determined to slacken the learning curve if this latest release of its beginner-friendly movie editor is anything to go by. However, with a plethora of free apps available online, is it worth using a paid-for one? Much like its brother across the page, Photoshop Elements, the additions to this 2018 addition are heavy on the automatic processing and time saving. It even claims to be able to teach you video editing. The interface remains much the same, with a preview window up top, timelines below, and fixes and effects on the right— maddeningly for Photoshop users, who will want them on the left. It’s an old-fashioned look now, with the icons appearing too large. The app…

MACHINEGAMES’ SUBLIME retrofuturistic reimagining of a Nazi-dominated 1960s has been screaming for another visit. The New Colossus moves things on five months from The New Order, with BJ Blazkowicz recovering from the injuries he suffered while taking out General Deathshead. Which explains why he’s in a wheelchair. This doesn’t stop him from taking out Nazis, of course, even on a submarine. The opening sequence—after cutscenes establishing BJ’s father as a white supremacist, dogshooting scumbag—seems trickier than the previous game’s. The supersoldiers make an appearance much sooner, and while you’re able to salvage a suitably large weapon from their smoking biomechanical corpses, we do miss the armored dogs. The New Colossus keeps The New Order’s hub level structure, from where you can initiate missions by talking to the right person, and…

On November 21, 2017, FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced his intent to “repeal the heavy-handed Internet regulations imposed by the Obama Administration and to return to the light-touch framework under which the Internet developed and thrived before 2015.” These plans to limit the FCC’s power and remove regulations protecting Internet users in the US will give companies like Comcast more power to shape how we use the Internet, despite Pai’s claim that “the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices, so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them, and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate.” Read the full article at http://bit.ly/1DrPHJK…

A year or so ago, rumors started that the two were in cahoots over GPUs. AMD AND INTEL do not make a habit of cooperating. That’s putting it mildly; they enjoy a somewhat heated rivalry. It hasn’t stopped them cutting a deal, though—Intel is going to put a Radeon GPU into its mobile chips. Shock. Intel says the deal will bring together the “Intel Core H series processor, second-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2), and a custom-to-Intel third-party discrete graphics chip from AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group.” Intel has also managed to get hold of AMD’s top GPU architect, Raja Koduri, to be a senior VP, and lead its high-end graphics development team— quite an acquisition. It is the first time since 1980 that the pair has collaborated over anything except writing…

Troublesome Gear Hi Doc, I have an issue with my PC, where its screen goes black and all its fans start spinning at maximum speed. The system stays like this and is unresponsive until I reset it. This seems to happen randomly; sometimes it goes black while I’m gaming, but I’ve also seen it act up at idle. I checked the CPU and GPU temperatures, and they look normal (low 30s C). I updated my graphics drivers, but to no avail. Do you think this is a software issue, or related to hardware? I know the BIOS hasn’t been updated, but I’m worried about the system crashing mid-upgrade. Otherwise, the PC ran great since I built it in 2014. The only upgrade I added was a GPU about one year…

IT’S BEEN A ROUGH YEAR for AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group. A really rough one. We didn’t expect the slightly bashful underdog of GPU technology to produce anything astounding, but after delay, after delay, after delay, we did expect more than we ended up with. Vega feels very much like a dud, especially as far as gaming is concerned. And although it powers through cryptomining like a V8 through gasoline, when your flagship card can’t compete with a competitor’s 14-month-old solution in the things that really matter, you know you’ve got problems. Combine that with the departure of Raja Koduri, AMD’s Radeon Tech Group Leader, leaving for Intel, from the outside, at least, things look dire. But are they really? We doubt Raja would have left if things with AMD’s next-gen…

Before even beginning to wrestle it into working, the act of acquiring an old PC game can be tricky in itself. Physical media drives are an increasingly rare sight on modern machines, and there’s every chance you threw all your old games out years ago. It might be tempting to hunt for a disc ISO file of some forgotten treasure on an abandonware site, but before you do, it’s worth knowing the legality of those actions, and what the term abandonware means. Essentially, the term defines a legal no-man’sland in which a product’s copyright might not have expired, but since its owner no longer supplies it for legal purchase or supports it, it “abandons” copyright enforcement. It’s safe to assume Activision doesn’t have a legal team pursuing all those who download…

1 Mech Heaven The beauty of the X9’s design stems from its mechanical keyboard. With slim manufactured switches, these genuinely feel like the real deal. Impressively, Gigabyte has incorporated this without shifting the hardware around, or affecting the overall size of the device. 2 Screen Mastery It’s up to you what screen you play with on the X9. You can either go for a more coloraccurate IPS 4K 60Hz affair, or, if you like your games buttery smooth and vibrant, a 1440p 120Hz VA panel is available instead. However, there’s no sign of any form of sync here. 3 Subtle Lights OK, so you can tell this is a gaming laptop. Whether it’s the hawk head on the trackpad, the sports car style air vents, or the angular design of…

About iFixit iFixit is a global community of tinkerers dedicated to helping people fix things through free online repair manuals and teardowns. iFixit believes that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their own products. To learn more, visit www.ifixit.com. BACKGROUND Ten years ago, Apple introduced the first iPhone. Now we’re taking apart the 18th iteration—the iPhone X. With its rounded edges and edge-to-edge display, we’re sure this is the iPhone Steve imagined all those years ago—but now that his dream is realized, will it be as influential as the first? Time will tell…. MAJOR TECH SPECS • A11 “Bionic” chip with neural engine and embedded M11 motion coprocessor • 5.8-inch OLED multitouch 2436x1125 (458 ppi) Super Retina HD display • Dual 12MP cameras (wide-angle and telephoto), with f/1.8…

YOU’LL NEED THIS AN OPTICAL DRIVE Most drives should work just fine—USB or internal. SEVERAL AUDIO CDS You need multiples to validate your drive’s intricacies. EXACT AUDIO COPY From www.exactaudiocopy.de. OK, GRANDPA, it’s time to trash that dusty old CD collection, or at least consign it permanently to a box in the garage, by shifting it all to a purely digital format. But if you’re going to go through your whole collection, it pays to do it right the first time, and that means ripping to a lossless format in a way that accurately replicates your discs. Once it’s there, you can do as you like with it; had you filled a hard drive with 128Kb/s MP3 files, you’d inevitably have to go through the whole task all over again…

WE DON’T KNOW what’s what. Assassin’s Creed is no longer an annual event, and no longer a game in which you hold down your controller’s right trigger, and run at things. It might take us some time to get over this. No more right trigger—that now unleashes a heavy attack capable of killing an unfortunate civilian in a single hit. You now run at things while holding the A button down, and this simple switch is just the tip of a whole iceberg of changes. Ancient Egypt suits AC, what with all those big stone monuments to run at, holding A. It’s a wider environment than the cramped streets of Victorian London we slunk through in Syndicate, bringing back memories of the dreadful ACIII’s forests. But in a good way.…

TRIUMPHS SAMSUNG Z-SSD SURFACES New NAND memory technology offers 3.2GB/s sequential data rates—more than fast enough to challenge Intel Optane. NINTENDO DOMINATES Forget Xbox and PS4—Nintendo has 66 percent of the console market, with Switch at number one, and SNES Classic at two. 4K VIA THE ANTENNA The FCC has approved broadcast 4K TV, although you’ll need a new box. First tests due in spring. TRAGEDIES UBER PAYS RANSOM After hackers stole 50 million user details last year, it transpires Uber paid $100K to make the problem go away. FAKE CRYPTOCURRENCY After raising $375K for an initial coin offering, Confido and its supposed CEO have vanished. A classic exit scam. GOOGLE SPYING AGAIN Even if you turned off location services, Google has tracked your phone over the last year.…

IT’S A RARE OCCURRENCE for the hype train to be not quite as overwhelming as the potency of the product it represents. And with Jim Keller masterminding the development of Team Red’s latest architecture, AMD’s Zen CPU lineup was hardly going to be a dud. However, none of us truly knew what to expect from the company that had otherwise disappointed us on the computational front for the previous six years. Ryzen was, and still is, a masterpiece. A once-in-adecade reinvention of a product. Something that AMD so desperately needed in order to assure its own future. Its effect on consumer computing has been vast and far reaching, pushing Intel to act, stop resting on its laurels, and raise its core counts higher, if only to retain anything like the…

IT WOULD BE FAIR TO SAY that Nvidia has demonstrated a good show of force when it came to the grand GPU war of the last two years. Pascal has been out for well over 18 months now, and still continues to reign dominant over its red competitor. Radeon’s Technology Group simply hasn’t been able to compete, either at the mid range, with its Polaris-based RX 400 and 500 series cards, or even more recently at the very high end, with Vega falling flat on its face, far from the hype that surrounded it. But with little competition, what’s the next step for the great green giant? Well, that would be Volta. We’ve long been hearing rumors about Nvidia’s latest and greatest architecture finally making it to the consumer market,…

THE STORAGE WARS have been waging for quite some time now. Samsung’s 960 series PCIe SSDs have comfortably sat top and center of the non-volatile hill for the last 12 months. And with little challenge to the Korean giant, there’s been no need for the company to reveal any new devices designed to push the boundaries of solid-state storage further. Even Intel and Micron have struggled to put up any resistance to the dominance of Sammy’s 3D MLC V-NAND tech and its controller—at least, not until recently. And then there are the connection standards, or perhaps it’s more apt to just say M.2 at this point. Because that’s the only connection standard still worth its salt in the PCIe board game. Intel’s U.2, like many—if not all— closed-off proprietary connection…

YOU PLACE A TREASURED CD-ROM into the disc tray, wistful about the good old days, and excited to see the familiar pixels of an old favorite game. Your PC reacts like a dog watching a magic trick. Autorun doesn’t work. Setup.exe doesn’t work. InstallShield is looking for a longforgotten Windows 98 library file in perpetuity. In a very real and upsetting way, your childhood is no longer compatible with the modern world, and you know that the only way to rekindle it involves hours of compatibility box-checking, Googling, and fiddling. A traumatic moment. But it doesn’t have to be. Getting software that was designed for much older operating systems and hardware to run on modern machines offers its own intrinsic satisfaction. It’s like breaking the rules, somehow, raising dead software…

Creating an artificial software environment in which a program’s tricked into running successfully is one way to describe the resurrection of old PC games. It’s also one way to describe console emulation on PC, which has a history as long as it is illegal. Its origins date back to 1990, when programs such as Family Computer Emulator v0.35 allowed a handful of NES games to run on PC. Since then, almost every console has been emulated on PC, and even Nintendo’s DS, with its unique control options, joined the ranks. As technical accomplishments, they’re impressive, and there’s a subversive thrill in seeing another platform holder’s ident appearing on a PC monitor. The key difference between using old PC games on a new PC and using old console games on a new…

SHUTDOWN TIMERS Ever needed to run your rig for a specific length of time? If, like us, your download ETAs run late into the night, sometimes it’s easier to run a shutdown timer to get the job done. There’s a ton of free programs that do this, but we find good old command prompt does the job best. Open a command prompt, and type “shutdown -s -t XXXX” where the Xs are the time in seconds that you want your system to wait before shutting down. submit your How To project idea to: comments@maximumpc.com…

YOU’LL NEED THIS RASPBERRY PI Any model is suitable. IF YOU’RE WORRIED about the somewhat Orwellian notion of a forced disclosure of passwords, this coding project posits a rather radical solution to the dilemma: Create a second password for your user account, which, instead of logging you in, nukes your home folder using special tools. As extreme as this sounds, it’s surprisingly simple to set up. A couple of disclaimers: Make sure you back up your personal data to a safe place before going ahead with this project. Also, bear in mind that it’s not an infallible method, because anyone with physical access to your machine may seize it before you have a chance to flip this kill switch. 1 CREATE YOUR NEW USER ACCOUNT Although you probably already have…

YOU’LL NEED THIS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP Subscribe to a suitable package at www.adobe.com. PHOTOGRAPHERS SPEND A LOT OF TIME ensuring their pictures are sharp—thousands of dollars’ worth of autofocus system will help you out, but there’s slightly more to it than that, just as cranking open your aperture may decrease your depth of field, but also introduce some softness to your subject, unless you’re using the latest lenses, which can be mind-blowingly expensive. Blur is an aesthetic issue, and as such, is subjective. Where one person may see the beauty of a small subject enhanced by a blurred background, others see a missed opportunity to show us what’s there clearly. This is where post-processing comes in. Photoshop has many tools to add blur to your images—some subtle, others less so—and even…

WHY DOES THIS CARD even exist? Let’s get one thing straight: Unless you’re deep into cryptocurrency mining, this generation’s GPU war is over. Nvidia has won. Vega, although powerful, can’t compete from a price perspective, and thanks to its horrendous power draw and delayed launch, it’s not an attractive proposition for gamers. Vega 56 was the most intriguing offering, slotting between the GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080. And that, presumably, is why Nvidia has brought this card to market. The problem, however, is that in its eagerness to secure every corner of the GPU market, Nvidia has cut off its nose to spite its face. What do we mean? Allow us to explain…. The best way to understand why this card is such a confusing proposition from Team Green…

RAZER’S YELLOW SWITCHES are paradoxical: at once very cool and really odd, super practical and annoyingly finicky, luxurious and squishy. We, frankly, didn’t like them one bit, but it’s not hard to tease out their practical benefits. They’re silent, for a start; the only sound you’ll hear is the unavoidable tap of a key bottoming out, and a little soft rubbing of the actuation shaft. For those with nearby ears exasperated by the audible click of, for example, Razer’s own ridiculously loud green switches, this is a boon. The springs don’t ring, even if you give the base of the board a solid whack— one of our biggest keyboard bugbears slashed through on the list. They’re also incredibly sensitive. There’s no debounce delay, thanks to Razer’s upgraded transmission technology, and…

OFFERING PHOTO EDITING for newcomers, the enthusiastic amateur photographer, or even those pros who don’t care about things such as CMYK or 16-bit color, Elements has long punched above its weight. Offering 90 percent of Photoshop’s most useful features for a fixed price, rather than an annual subscription, and available as a standalone app or in a bundle with its video-editing brother, Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements is one of the best ways to get into “proper” image editing, rather than playing with filters and emoji. The Elements interface remains unchanged since version 11, released in 2012. The shift to a year in the app title, rather than a version number, makes it a bit easier to tell how old your version is in future, which can only strengthen the urge…