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Fat binaries contain both ARM and x86 code, but I was referring to Rosetta, which is used for x86-only binaries.
Rosetta does translation of x86 to ARM, both AOT and JIT. It does translate to normal ARM code, the only dependency on a Apple-specific custom ARM extension is that the M-series processors have a special mode that implements x86-like strong memory ordering. This means Rosetta does not have to figure out where to place memory barriers, this allows for much better performance.
So when running translated code Apple Silicon is basically an ARM CPU with an x86 memory model.
I bought it on PS5 and I’m having fun playing it. Sure, it doesn’t do anything new, the gameplay is very familiar and the enemy AI is dumb as rocks, but you get to play in the Star Wars universe, the locations look great and the story so far seems decent enough (although I’m not that far into the game yet).
Not every meal needs to be a 3 Michelin star gourmet affair, sometimes having a Big Mac with fries is perfectly fine.
Apple and Google are working together as part of the GMSA committee on RCS to add encryption to the standard, instead of using Google’s proprietary incompatible extension for e2ee.
It’s probably going to take a while due to the whole process needed to add it to the standard, which is also why RCS in general is a terrible idea: you can’t really innovate if everything you want to improve has to go through this whole layer of bureaucracy.
If you’re using the built in speakers on any device, you deserve the bad audio quality lol.
It’s possible to make good built in speakers. The MacBook Pros sound great, even the new iPads sound way better than you’d ever expect from such a thin device. My 13” M4 iPad Pro even has decent bass, it’s ridiculous.
Is it as good as a stand alone amplifier with two tower speakers? No, of course not. But I’m not bringing those along with me either.
Roguelikes.
Roguelites.
Chess.
Deck builders.
Not my cup of tea.
More broadly, games with different narrative choices (eg: Witcher 2 has two mutually exclusive middle acts).
I kinda like it that it makes my decisions in the game more impactful. If you’re going to go back and play the other option anyway, then it kind of makes the decision meaningless.
How are story games shallow? They are much deeper than the next generic multiplayer shooter. I happen to like stories in all forms, books, movies, series and video games. Video games are unique in that they allow you to be part of a story. For me the story is the single most important thing of a game. Often I simply play games on easy or story mode, mainly to keep up the pacing of the story.
I also am a Mac user who has a PS5 and a Steam Deck and honestly my SD is collecting dust. It’s a cool bit of hardware but it has too many compromises. The main problem is that it’s just not comfortable to play on. The screen is too small and the way you hold it you end up constantly looking down at is, which is just not ergonomic. The PS5 is also on in seconds from rest mode, and has the benefit of being hooked up to a 77” OLED and a nice 5.1.4 surround sound system.
For self-hosting I have several Linux and *BSD machines, but that’s server-grade hardare, not gaming hardware. None of those machines even has a GPU.
Drawing I do on my iPad Pro, for everything else I have a MacBook Pro. If I got a desktop PC it would only be used for games, I have no real need for non-server PC hardware.
But nowadays it seems like they’re just as expensive, still not as good for specs and the games are just as bug-riddled as PC games half the time.
No they aren’t ‘as expensive’, LTT did a video a while back where they tried to build a PC that could beat a PS5 for a similar price. They had to buy used parts to match the price and the PC did not include a controller ($69). If you’re going to use used parts, then also compare it to the price of a used PS5.
And Sony has been releasing all their big hits on PC anyway so yeah really no reason for me to get a PS5 that I can see.
Sure, if you want to play old-ass games, get a PC.
Sound is at least as important to the experience as the picture. Go watch a scary movie with the sound muted and you’ll notice it’s not scary at all.
Playing a game or watching a movie with just 2.0 audio, or worse: using the TV’s built-in speakers, is such a diminished experience that you might as well not bother.
Lots of movies sold on 4k bluray are upscales/‘remasters’ of the 2k version. Some are re-scans from the original 35mm film, those can be pretty good, depending on the source material. There is a huge variety in the quality or 4k movies.
If you can get your hands on it, try the LOTR 4k extended editions. If you get them from an ‘alternative source’ make sure you get one with untouched video (e.g. a remux). They are huge, about 100-120GB per movie but they look amazing. Wonder Woman 1984 also looks really good in 4k HDR, especially the opening scene.
4k content on streaming services varies a lot in quality, but is generally not as good as 4k bluray. Amazon Prime Video looks quite bad, terrible compression with lots of artifacts. Out of the streaming services, Apple TV+ has the best 4k video quality by far.
The LOTR 4k bluray is in my opinion on of the best showcases, especially if you compare it to the HD version. The HD bluray looks good, don’t get me wrong, but that’s all it is. Just a good movie with nice pictures. In 4k HDR with Dolby Atmos it’s something completely different. It’s like magic, almost impossible to look away from the screen. You end up starting it up just to see what the quality looks like and before you know it you unintentionally watched the entire extended edition.
I have a 4k TV and don’t get it either. Watched the odd video in 4k and the colors are maybe a bit crisper, but that’s about it. I’d have to compare movies side by side to actually spot the difference.
The point of 4k is that you can have a TV twice as large as your 1080p TV before it without losing sharpness.
I can definitely tell the difference on my 77” OLED.
Simple: It’s GamePass.
If you sell individual games, you have basically two ways of making more money: make more games or make better games so more people buy them.
The economies for a subscription service are completely different. People don’t subscribe to GamePass for a specific game, they subscribe for the entire collection. More games or better games don’t really drive up the number of subscribers. The only way to make more money is to drive down costs. You don’t make expensive, awesome games. Instead you drip-feed a steady stream of low-budget titles. You just have to make sure that the value of access to the entire collection is just about worth the subscription price.
Microsoft doesn’t care about games, they care about making money. They didn’t get into gaming because of a love for games, they realized it’s a market they didn’t dominate yet.
They lured people into GamePass with day-1 drops of AAA titles and now that the subscribers are there it’s time to squeeze as much money out of the service as possible.
And it’s not just GamePass. It’s all subscription services. Netflix is a good example: quality has been going down there for years.
The only real exception seems to be music streaming, but that’s mainly because there are so many artists and practically no exclusivity. In other words: there is healthy competition in the music streaming business.
No, it’s not just an USB-C USB3.0 connector. It uses an USB-C Alt-mode called VirtualLink. This was intended as a standard for connecting VR headsets and was briefly supported on PC, on 2000 series Nvidia cards, but no modern day cards support it.
It combines USB3, DisplayPort and some other stuff, and has some specific power output requirements. The pinout is completely different from the common DisplayPort + USB2 alt mode.
It will probably need an external box + power supply to work. Something like that already exists but hope/suspect the Sony version will be cheaper that his.
They don’t have to give Sony or Nintendo a 30% cut on anything sold on Xbox.
The question is if it’s worth it for them. They have to design, manufacture and support that hardware, which is sold at low or maybe even negative margin. They get a percentage from 3rd party sales but with their low sales numbers it may not be worth the effort.
There is also the fact that Microsoft’s core business is software, not hardware. Even if the hardware business makes a small profit there is also a cost associated with a lack of focus in a company.
For example, AWS is super popular even though it would be a lot cheaper for a lot of companies to run their services on their own hardware. They simply don’t want to have to deal with all that because it’s not their core business. At heart, Microsoft is still a software company, it makes sense for them to focus on the software side of the game business.
This is what I expect as well, with maybe some reassurance that they have no intention of pulling Xbox Series S/X off the market. Then, when Sony announces the PS6, people will be waiting for an announcement on the next-gen xbox. And waiting, and waiting, and waiting…
They will continue selling it this generation, and quietly drop out after that.
That’s not a solution at all. First of all, depending country, you will need a gambling license. This is a PITA as gambling laws will differ per country. In my country gambling is heavily regulated and you would need to check ID and keep track of how much a person gambles. You have a duty of care and if you notice a person’s gambling habits are becoming problematic you have to refuse them.