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Xbox One's 500GB HDD swapped for bigger, faster drives, and tested for performance
The Xbox One arrives with a 500GB HDD built-in, and in contrast to the PlayStation 4's easily-accessed storage, it's not meant to be accessed or replaced by the user, ever. While we'll probably leave ours in place to keep from voiding the warranty or risk a ban from Xbox Live, a few folks have already cracked open the console to see what else will fit. iFixit noted during its teardown that there's an off-the-shelf 2.5-inch Samsung HDD inside connected via SATA II inside, and swapping that out isn't much of an issue. Brian Williams has already tried out the system with two alternate drives: a 500GB Samsung EVO SSD, and a Seagate 1TB hybrid SSHD. As you can see in his video (embedded after the break) boot time from off to the dashboard only improved slightly, with the SSD loading in 46.1 seconds compared to 50.5 stock. A test with Call of Duty: Ghosts revealed similar results, with the SSD loading up in 27 seconds and the hybrid drive close behind in 27.7, compared to 33.5 seconds stock. We'll need tests with more games to be sure, but so far it's not showing the improvements seen after swapping the PS4's hard drive out for speedier options. The folks at Tested report doing so improved level load times in Killzone: Shadow Fall from 60 seconds to 39 seconds. So, if it's not a ton faster, why would you want to take the chance of prying Microsoft's box open? To get more space. Brian's drives were simply copies of the original transferred by Clonezilla, but an individual named Juvenal1 has already worked out how to get the system to actually recognize and make use of drives bigger than 500GB. By copying files from your original drive and using their Linux-compatible tool to repartition the new HDD, you can be up and running with more capacity after just a reboot or two. Of course, this carries significant risks and we don't recommend it for most, as Microsoft's Albert Penello has already revealed support for external drives is coming in a future update, along with the ability to do crazy things like see how much storage you actually have left. Still, if you just need to live on the edge (or store every game released so far and record hours of clean Upload Studio clips) the instructions can be found here. Update: If you're interested in performing the upgrade, Brian Williams has followed with a video walkthrough for the process of properly formatting a larger hard drive, even if you're not familiar with using Linux.
Adidas miCoach X_Cell hits FCC, looks ready to track your sporting life
Judging by a recent FCC application, Adidas is about to add a new player to its miCoach lineup: the X_Cell performance monitor. According to the manual, the wee device can either be worn on your clothing or strapped to your chest for use in sports like football, soccer and tennis. So attached, it'll store seven hours or more of your sprinting speeds, dodging and cutting forces, jump forces, workout times and heart rates. You can then connect via Bluetooth to the miCoach iOS app to monitor your progress or brag about it on Facebook or Twitter. Adidas has yet to announce it, so there's no word on cost or an arrival date -- but when it does come, coasting through practice might be a thing of the past. To see a flip-side image, hit the break.
Android 4.3 supports TRIM, improves performance on Nexus devices
It's no secret that many Android phones and tablets show a decrease in performance over time. Nexus devices are not immune -- it's particularly noticeable with the original Nexus 7. Our friend Brian Klug over at AnandTech discovered an interesting tidbit while testing the new and improved Nexus 7: Android 4.3 supports TRIM. What this means is that Google's mobile OS can now instruct the flash storage controller when to collect / recycle unused data pages / blocks. The net result is that devices running Android 4.3 will no longer become sluggish with time -- in fact, existing Nexus handsets and tablets will see performance improve after the update. It also looks like Jelly Bean invokes TRIM maintenance once within a 24-hour window (after one hour of inactivity), and only if the battery is 80% full (30% when charging). Follow the source link below for all the details.
Skype for Windows 8 gains contact blocking and performance improvements
Those of you using Skype in Windows 8 will be happy to know that Microsoft's just bumped the app to version 1.6. It's been a few months since the last update, and this revision brings more features to the table, including contact blocking and a slew of performance tweaks. You're now able to block users, with an option to remove or report the offending party. Speed and reliability have been improved, especially when loading contacts, and a number of bugs have been fixed, including one where the outgoing video was not always displayed after switching cameras. The update's available in the Windows Store, so what are you waiting for?
Camelot Unchained's team puts gameplay over graphics
City State Entertainment co-founder Andrew Meggs shares a tough question that any smaller MMO team has to answer from time to time: What happens when you have to choose between graphics, gameplay, and performance in developing an MMO? In a new blog post, Meggs says that for Camelot Unchained, graphics are the first to go on the backburner. "When it comes down to the sheer number of [polygons], any time we have to choose between that and delivering on our core gameplay, we're going to choose the gameplay," Meggs writes. "That requires certain sacrifices." Even so, Meggs said that the team is adept at putting a lot of personality and flair into the graphics it creates, it's just that the focus is creating a game that lasts: "We know that we're building a world for characters to live in, not a theme park for tourists to visit."
The PS4's processor and performance: what we know and what we think we know
After all the press events, TV cameos and probing interviews, what do we really know about the PS4? The announcement of the next-gen console is a prime example of having an abundance of specs and a lack of knowledge. Although Sony put out a sheet of stats about the console's processor and memory, many of the words it used -- Jaguar cores, compute units, unified memory -- are more ambiguous than they may sound. Nevertheless, even with all these foggy bits, there are some things -- five, in fact -- that we probably can predict about the PS4's hardware. They're listed after the break in order of decreasing certainty. All the way from confident logic down to... well, not quite flailing around with a butter knife during a power cut, but you get the picture.
EVE Online sorts out its inventory system
While inventory management might not be at the top of everyone's most-anticipated expansion features, CCP is going to lengths to drum up enthusiasm for EVE Online's upcoming inventory overhaul. In a new dev diary, the changes coming with the Retribution expansion are laid out in excruciating detail. When players get their hands on Retribution, they'll find a much more streamlined inventory experience. The windows will persist longer, performance time will improve by leaps and bounds, the system will be easier to use, a compact view will be introduced, and there will be multiple ways to access one's inventory. Even something as small and mundane as the scroll bars are being revamped. The devs are also adding an intuitive feature to allow players an easy way to loot wrecks either all at once or one at a time based on whether or not the index tree is expanded.
Vellamo benchmark adds CPU and memory tests, here's how it rates the One X and GS III
Qualcomm's Vellamo app has been a part of the furniture in our Android benchmarking suite for a while now, providing a fun little test of browsing and networking speeds on almost any Android device. Version 2.0 adds something extra, however: a section called "Metal" that is all about putting your processor and memory through the wringer. As a quick taster, we ran the new HTML5 and Metal tests on the HTC One X (both global and AT&T) and the Galaxy S III (global and Sprint), settling on the average of three consecutive results. Conspiracy theorists who think that Qualcomm's app favors its own processors will only find further ammunition in the CPU results, however the HTML5 scores actually give the QCOM devices much less of a lead than the old Vellamo did, scoring all four handsets roughly equally. You'll find the table overleaf, along with a publicity video that explains the update.
FCC to begin testing and reporting mobile broadband performance
Just like the FCC is looking to the public to help define modern broadband, it's similarly planning to arm citizens with more accurate information of mobile broadband speeds. The initiative is promoted as a natural extension of the Measuring Broadband America report, an annual publication of the FCC that currently only applies to wireline services. While still in the planning stages, the agency has already secured cooperation from CTIA and the major carriers. Come September 21st, the FCC will hold an open meeting to discuss the most appropriate methods for gathering and analyzing the data. It'll likely be a rather dry affair, but if you're really keen on attending, you'll find the complete details after the break.
Is Qualcomm considering an AR benchmark as 'the mother of all tests'?
Today at the Qualcomm mobile benchmarking workshop in San Francisco, Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research suggested that using augmented reality (AR) to test the performance of mobile devices could be "the mother of all tests." By stressing all processors and sensors on modern smartphones and tablets -- including CPU, GPU, DSP, ISP (image processor), GPS, gyro, compass, accelerometer, barometer, mic and camera -- the benchmark would represent the worst case scenario in term of computing load. While AR adoption is still in its infancy amongst consumers -- technology such as Project Glass still faces serious challenges -- Qualcomm's been very active in the field over the years and even provides an SDK for developers. Could this be a hint of what's coming from the company in terms of benchmarking beyond Neocore and Vellamo? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Nexus 7 early benchmarks: full Tegra 3 performance on the cheap
Are you totally, utterly and irrevocably impatient? Then head past the break for some very early benchmarks we grabbed from a pre-production (hand-built) Nexus 7 in London. Our full review will have far more complete and reliable stats, but in the meantime we've seen just enough evidence to be sure of one thing: neither the tablet's low $199 price point nor its slightly reduced (1.2GHz) clock speed throttle its Tegra 3 engine in any obvious way. Read on for more.
Choose My Adventure: The first week of TERA
I wouldn't be very good at handling Choose My Adventure if I didn't do my homework, and that's without even taking into account that playing a game kind of falls under the header of "homework" in this situation. So I knew full well what I was getting into in TERA when I saw that first a Castanic Warrior was winning the class and race polls, followed by an Elin Lancer. This intrigued me because this meant that the two tanks classes were first in everyone's mind. And I knew enough about the game from external research to know that these two classes are as different as can be, not to mention that the two races winning the poll are probably the two races most noted for the controversies mentioned in the first column. So I had an idea. If I couldn't get a clear picture of the game from just one selection, I'd get it from two. And thus were Higiri and Rielene created on Celestial Hills, an Elin Lancer and a Castanic Warrior, the top two results. And they really couldn't be more different.
Guild Wars 2 increasing population limits for the beta weekend
The Guild Wars 2 beta is getting hammered. No, it's not slipping off to the bar to order shots until it can't drive home, but it is getting filled with people eager to try out the game. To compensate, ArenaNet has just announced that world population limits are being increased for the beta event, meaning that several worlds previously listed as being full are now open to more characters. This may not fix the issue, but it should help alleviate some of the stress from the rush. Of course, the game is still in beta, and that means that not everything in the game is fully polished. Want to make sure that there's actually a problem and not just an issue with your computer? Check the updated known issues thread, which has an extensive set of understood issues. Perhaps most globally relevant is the fact that the game is apparently very heavily bottlenecked by the CPU; if you're having performance issues, lowering the video settings may not help you for this round of testing.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 review round-up: 'just get here if you can'
While the world still waits for the GTX 680 to reach Newegg, NVIDIA has pushed ahead with the next card down in its stack: the $399 GTX 670. This more affordable option keeps most of the main Kepler credentials intact, but it necessarily makes a few compromises on the computational side, with fewer processing cores (1344 instead of 1536) and texture units (112 instead of 128) as well as slower base clock speed (915MHz instead of 1006MHz). Is that likely to be a problem? Judging from reviewers' responses published today, which cover cards from a range of vendors, probably not. In fact, as TechSpot puts it, "there's very little to critique," because the GTX 670 matches the performance of AMD's flagship Radeon HD 7970 at a much lower price. AnandTech's benchmarks put the reference board only ten percent (or a handful of fps) behind the GTX 680 in many recent games, leaving it "nipping at the 7970's heels," but it was still plenty powerful enough to play Arkham City or Battlefield 3 at 5760 x 1200 with high settings. PCPer's stats put the new card 15 to 20 percent behind the 680, but found good scaling in SLI mode. The Tech Report found the the GTX 670's cheap stock cooler let it down slightly, with a "friction-filled" idle noise well above the top-end Radeons and even above the dual-GPU GTX 690 -- but under load it conducted itself relatively well. We could go on, but ultimately if you're looking to buy this card then you'll want to do your own research at the links below, and then do a raindance. Read - TechSpot Read - AnandTech Read - The Tech Report Read - PC Per Read - HotHardware Read - Tom's Hardware Read - Hexus
Tesla publishes Model S efficiency and range stats, expects 350 highway miles per charge
We've spent our fair share of time behind the dash of Tesla's gorgeous Model S, though there hasn't been an opportunity to push the all-electric vehicle to its limits on the fuel battery front. The sedan still isn't quite ready for a full-on range test, but the manufacturer has provided a teaser in the form of some updated stats, with a line graph demonstrating consistent improvements over the Roadster. Assuming constant highway travel at speeds of 50-70 miles-per-hour, the Model S is expected to continue rolling for 250-350 miles on a single charge, with the car possibly exceeding 400 miles at slower speeds (think 35 mph and below, but still on the highway). There's an 85 kWh battery on board (compared to 55 kWh on the Roadster), and despite taking a massive hit for size and weight, the Model S only consumes about 10 percent more power than its more-svelte sibling. Those figures apply to the mph listed above, and speed demons can expect to see a massive dive in range. Sounds like we can expect some fiery performance on the road -- just, hopefully not in the garage -- when the sedan begins making its way to customers next month, ahead of the original July ship proposal. Hop on past the break and hit up our source link for some nifty graphs, along with Tesla's findings in full.
Intel's Ivy Bridge will offer '20 percent more performance with 20 percent less average power'
So, there's still a little while to go before Intel gives Ivy Bridge a full unveiling, with official benchmarks, pricing and all those trimmings. But in the meantime, the BBC has detailed just how different this new architecture is compared to 32nm chips like Sandy Bridge and also AMD's coming Trinity processors. Most of this stuff we already knew -- like the fact that Intel has switched to a 3D or 'tri-gate' transistor design -- but what's new is a direct and official boast about performance. According to Kirk Skaugen, Chipzilla's PC chief, we can expect Ivy Bridge to deliver "20 percent more processor performance using 20 percent less average power." Now, judging from leaked desktop and laptop benchmarks, this broad-brush claim masks some very different realities depending on what type of CPU or GPU workloads you want throw at the chip, so stay tuned for more detail very soon.
ASUS Transformer Prime GPS Extension Kit hands-on
Software updates can only get you so far, and in the case of ASUS' Transformer Prime, they didn't even get it down the street. The Taiwanese tablet has been fighting satellite blindness since its inception -- it was only a matter of time before the Tegra 3 slab caved in and got a prescription. The Transformer Prime GPS Extension Kit was quietly announced on ASUS's member site, a freebie Prime owners could snag for registering their slates. The accessory's promised mid-april shipping date arrived, and so did the kit: read on to see what our newly equipped tablet could see.
AMD confirms Trinity and Brazos 2.0 shipping now, globally available 'soon'
Any troglodytes out there who didn't know that AMD's next APU architecture is inbound? If so, we're gonna toast marshmallows outside your cave and give you a little pre-brief: Trinity will be a range of processors for "performance" notebooks and desktop PCs, which will continue in AMD's Fusion tradition of providing both the CPU and discrete-class graphics in a single-chip, power-efficient design. A potential rival to Ivy Bridge and the coming stampede of Ultrabooks? Yes indeed, although it's too early to say how closely matched these athletes will be, despite some early indications of 4GHz+ clock speeds. Judging from our recent look at a Trinity-packing Compal laptop, undercutting Ultrabooks on price will also be part of AMD's strategy -- along with throwing out Brazos 2.0 APUs to mop up the extreme low-power category. After all, Ivy Bridge probably won't offer truly discrete-class graphics until it's paired with an add-on GPU, which will inevitably bump up its price for gamers and multimedia types. If Trinity serves up great visuals and next-gen performance all in one go, AMD's accountants might be able to leave their subterranean hideouts too. [Thanks, Tyler]
Microsoft details memory reclaiming process within Metro-style apps
Microsoft has made clear that Metro-style apps will be "suspended" when they aren't the foremost app that's running, enabling the associated CPU to divert its power to more... shall we say, pressing matters. But for those wondering about memory in the aforesaid scenario, there's an entire post now dedicated to explaining precisely that. Microsoft's own Bill Karagounis -- group program manager on the Fundamentals team -- has penned a behind-the-scenes look at how memory will be reclaimed within Windows 8, even when Metro-style apps are suspended. The long and short of it is this: starting with Windows 8 Consumer Preview, "whenever Windows detects memory pressure on the system, it will repurpose nearly all the memory that suspended Metro style apps would otherwise hold onto; [the OS] can reclaim this memory without having to terminate an app." For those seeking an even deeper understanding, the source link has your name written all over it.
Aion gives Pando Media Booster the boot [Updated]
If you've never heard of Pando Media Booster before, then you probably haven't downloaded one of several free-to-play games. It's meant to improve download speeds and speed in streaming clients, but in practical terms it's frequently cited as a resource hog that cripples performance on many computers. Aion was one of the many games that used the program following its transition to free-to-play, complete with the usual complaints, but as of now, the game can be played without the booster. As of this afternoon, the game can be downloaded directly from the master NCsoft launcher without using any third-party workarounds. If you had already downloaded and installed the game, you can feel free to safely shut down and uninstall Pando Media Booster without any impact on your gameplay. Considering the horror stories that have periodically circled around the program, Aion players will likely be happy to learn it's no longer associated with the game. [Update: NCsoft has contact us to clarify that the removal of Pando Media Booster from Aion is only temporary: "We temporarily removed Pando Media Booster so that we can test a variety of server-side adjustments regarding download completion rates and further refine the service we provide our players. We will bring Pando Media Booster back once we've optimized our service to provide the best download rates possible." Sorry for the confusion!]
