Table of contents for May 2020 in APC

AMD has announced that its upcoming RDNA 2 gaming architecture will fully support DirectX 12 Ultimate. AMD RDNA 2 will power the next generation of AMD Radeon graphics cards and the Xbox Series X. The architecture has four key features, DirectX Raytracing (DXR), Variable Rate Shading (VRS), Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback. DXR makes games look more realistic. AMD and Microsoft worked together to design DXR 1.1, which is an update to the original DXR. The newer version features better performance and improved efficiency for many raytracing effects. AMD states that when devices such as PCs and consoles support DXR 1.1 and AMD RDNA 2 architecture that gamers will “experience stunning, next-level visuals in games that support DirectX 12 Ultimate.” One of the main benefits of companies like AMD and…

Propelled by average enthusiasts in their shared quest to defeat COVID-19, the Folding@Home network is now pushing out 470 PetaFLOPS of raw compute power. To put that in perspective, that’s twice as fast as Summit, the world’s fastest supercomputer, making the network faster than any known supercomputer. It’s impressive that the Folding@ Home network is now more than twice as powerful as Summit’s 149 PetaFLOPS of sustained output: ORNL announced two weeks ago that Summit had also joined the coronavirus fight and has already found 77 different small-molecule drug compounds that might be useful to fight the virus. Summit employs 220,800 CPU cores, 188,416,000 CUDA cores, 9.2PB of memory, and 250PB of mixed NVRAM/ storage for the task. But Summit is far faster than the other supercomputers further down the…

Efforts to stem the spread of coronavirus, which at the time of writing has infected over 775,000 people and killed over 37,000, will undoubtedly come to define how we remember 2020. Government responses have varied dramatically, and while the Australian government’s response has been far from perfect, it has taken measures that demonstrate, at least, that it takes the matter very seriously indeed. That the world will be indelibly changed by this pandemic almost goes without question: factors like the economy are, naturally, the biggest talking points. But the pandemic has also created a ‘new normal’ when it comes to surveillance technology. In China, for example, drones have been used to ensure infected or at risk citizens follow quarantine instructions, and the Guardian reports that “getting into one’s apartment compound…

If you’re still rocking that iconic Razr flip-phone from 2004, we have good news: those “podcast” things really took off, The Incredibles finally got a sequel, and there’s a new Razr that’ll blow your mind. Let’s test its teardownability. MAJOR TECH SPECS ■ 6.2-inch 2142x876 foldable plastic OLED display (~373 ppi) ■ 2.2GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor ■ 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, 2,510mAh of battery power ■ 16MP f/1.7 main camera with dual-pixel autofocus and one 5MP f/2.0 selfie camera KEY FINDINGS ■ Back in our day, the Motorola Razr was the coolest thing around. We’re happy to see that the new Razr keeps the sleek look. All the modern-day gear adds bulk, though. The new Razr is 35 percent wider and 118 percent heavier than our…

The Gold Award is given to the company deemed to be the very best of 2019. To stand out in a field of such spirited competition, in the ever-evolving cauldron of PC tech, requires a team that has focus, talent, fresh thinking and the ability to deliver. Winning is the mark of a team that has it all. Taking home the Gold is an honour its winner can be especially proud of – and that’s because it is you that decided this one. Voting has been running across our sites and we hope you had your say! WINNER: Asus Consistent quality, range and innovation across a huge variety of categories. Asus wants to be number one at everything it does, and its untiring efforts lead to great choice for consumers,…

Whether it’s the introduction of HDR colour, the opening up of compatibility between Nvidia’s GeForce cards and AMD Freesync compatible screens, or the faster and faster refresh rates, it’s a pretty awesome time to be buying a PC display. It’s perhaps even better for those considering a living room PC. Take the new Asus ROG Swift PG43UQ as an example. In addition to being TV-large at 43-inches, it’s also one of the first monitors we’ve seen to get a Vesa DisplayHDR 1000 certification, which means it has been independently tested to be able to reproduce a wide colour gamut at a peak brightness of 1000 nits (the level that is generally required for TV HDR labeling). This brightness level isn’t usually needed on monitors because you sit so close to…

PCIe 4.0 SSDs have been trickling onto the market ever since the launch of AMD’s X570 platform, though they remain very much enthusiast- and prosumer-oriented drives, at least until we see budget chipset support and, particularly support, on Intel platforms. Seagate is the biggest company yet to jump aboard the PCIe 4.0 train with its FireCuda 520 series SSD and its specifications look very tasty indeed, easily faster than the best PCIe 3.0 drives. At $429 for the 1TB model, it’s definitely on the pricey side though. Is all the raw speed worth it? The Seagate FireCuda 520 is a standard form factor M.2 2280 (80mm length) NVMe drive. In something that’s rare among PCIe 4.0 drives, the FireCuda 520 doesn’t come with a heatsink. This might seem like an…

Before embarking on your quest to explore new fun and productive ways to use your PC, start by giving your PC the once-over. Begin by checking your backups are working as they should – the box below reveals all you need to know. Once that’s done, run a few system checks to verify there are no underlying problems that might catch you out later. The quickest and easiest way to access these is Tweaking.com’s Windows Repair Tool – go to www. tweaking.com to download, install and run the latest version. Start by focusing on the ‘Pre-Repair Steps’ tab where you can run through a series of standard Windows checks: a pre-scan for missing files and links, a disk check and finally a system file check. Windows Repair steps you through…

As we get older, it’s important to stay active both mentally and physically. Exercising your brain has all kinds of benefits, but it pays to vary the types of exercise you do to keep things stimulated and open new neural pathways. Your PC can play a huge role in this – all you need to do is target the right kind of games and puzzles. First, brush up on your word skills. Fan of crosswords? If you’re happy to do so online, head to www. boatloadpuzzles.com/playcrossword where you’ll find over 40,000 simple and cryptic puzzles available to solve in your web browser. Perhaps you prefer word searches, in which case LR Studios’ Word Search – Puzzles app is free on the Microsoft Store and offers unlimited puzzles. Next, give your…

They say everyone has a novel in them, but starting with a blank Word document is as off-putting as it gets. What you need is a tool that’s geared towards helping you write your story – fiction or non-fiction – and that tool is yWriter (www.spacejock.com/ yWriter6.html). It’s a full-blown project management tool aimed at budding novelists, providing everything you need to plot, structure and – of course – actually write your story. You’ll find options to set up and manage characters, locations and objects, plus jot down notes. yWriter structures your story into sections, chapters and scenes – start by choosing ‘Project > New Project Wizard’ to create a bare-bones project with title and author name. Then create your first chapter from the Chapter menu followed by its opening…

Don’t take risks when opening your PC case or handling its sensitive innards. They’re susceptible to static electricity, which we humans are masters at producing. If you can afford it, we recommend investing in an anti-static wrist strap (widely available on eBay for as little as $5). Attach the wristband to your wrist and clip the other end on to your PC case to provide an earth to safely discharge any static build-up. If you don’t have access to a wrist strap, another way to discharge static safely is to ensure your PC remains plugged into the mains, but that the mains switch itself is off – this then uses the cable and socket as an earth. If you plan to handle sensitive components like motherboards outside of your PC…

Windows’ built-in repair tools can only do so much – if you find them falling short, then it’s time to call in the cavalry. Lazesoft Recovery Suite is our go-to tool when it comes to taking on stubborn boot problems. Not only does it offer a wider range of repair tools, but there are also tools for recovering data from crashed (but readable) drives as well as the option of taking a fail-safe image of your entire corrupted Windows installation, ensuring you won’t lose any files even if you end up with no other choice but the nuclear option (see box below). In an ideal world you’ll have a Lazesoft recovery disc or USB flash drive ready to go, but if not you’ll need access to a working PC. Browse…

The simplest way to resolve boot problems is to effortlessly roll back to a moment before the glitch occurred. No wasted time troubleshooting, no heart-in-mouth moments as you wonder if you’ll ever see your data again. Instead, a brief tut-tut followed by the restoration of your latest backup, and on you go. This approach requires you to have a back-up plan in place, so if you’ve not already done so, download and install Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium. com/reflectfree.aspx). During setup, be sure to click Options under ‘Download Location & Options’ to select ‘Reflect Installer and PE Components’. This will download the components required to create the all-important recovery media, for which you’ll need a spare CD, DVD or USB flash drive (1GB or larger is recommended, but you may get…

As the coronavirus spreads through the community, governments have acted, which has led to the rise of people staying at home for extended periods of time, be it for self-isolation or to work from home. Where much of the economy is feeling the pain of falling or no patronage thanks to social distancing rules and forced closures of many venues, the tech sector is experiencing something of a boom. Staying or working at home means people need IT hardware like computers, monitors, keyboards to either keep themselves entertained or productive in their job remotely. As our two industry contacts reveal in Shop Talk, computer stores are finding it hard to keep up with demand, not only because of the increased demand itself, but because China went into lockdown months ago…

WINDOWS FIX WINDOWS UPDATE My laptop has stopped installing updates since the 1903 update a couple of months ago. It gets to seven percent, then rolls back. Can you help? Raymond Whitehall We stepped Raymond through all the standard procedures, including downloading the update manually and running the built-in troubleshooter under ‘Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot’. We also helped him take his first ever system backup using Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium.com/ reflectfree.aspx) in case anything disastrous happened with our more root-and-branch repairs. Once done, the next step was to elicit the help of the free version of Windows Repair. Download and install it from www.tweaking.com – once done, you’ll need to reboot into Safe mode. To do this, press Win-R, type “msconfig” and press Enter. Switch to the…

CATALOGUE ACDSee, in common with other image management apps, keeps a database of image data, nondestructive edits, etc. METADATA Data about data. Your camera saves a lot of information on each photo it takes, which you can add to. KEYWORDS Words associated with your images, designed to be searched for.…

Deleting files is a fairly straightforward process, whether you work with a graphical interface or the command line. The former, more often than not, relegates deleted files into the trash directory, giving you the option to access deleted files and even restore them if needed. But this isn’t the case with the popular rm command. Once invoked, rm immediately flushes the specified files, skipping the trash directory altogether. To recover a file deleted from the command line, you must use dedicated software such as PhotoRec, but the process is involved and cumbersome, and not the subject of this tutorial. If you wish to permanently delete files using the graphical environment, you must press the Shift-Del key combo. You’ll be prompted with an alert seeking confirmation before the selected files or…

Raspberry Pi projects are never quite as straightforward as they appear. Many (if not all) of the tutorials featured in APC are crystallised moments – the result of days, weeks or even months of research that bring us to a point of usability. The project might work and work well, but there is always room for improvement. CHOOSING A CHASSIS Raspberry Pi tablet-builders have two options for a case: take advantage of an existing product, or else fabricate a customisable option (this will typically be a 3D-printed case). Cases designed to fit a Raspberry Pi and the official touchscreen display are a good starting point. The OneNineDesign Case for Raspberry Pi Official 7-inch Touchscreen from The Pi Hut (http://bit.ly/LXF261-case) is an acceptable starting point, but it’s short of space for…

1 DECIDE ON PLASMA MOBILE If the idea of installing a new operating system on your Raspberry Pi for a tablet project doesn’t appeal, consider Plasma Mobile. Developed as a means to introduce KDE Linux to smartphones, Plasma Mobile is basically a desktop environment that is compatible with Raspbian. So while the Raspberry Pi tablet runs Raspbian Lite, it has Plasma Mobile set as the UI. 2 INSTALL RASPBIAN LITE AND ENABLE SSH Start off with a fresh install of Raspbian Lite (http://bit. ly/LXF261-rasplite), written to an SD card with Etcher. Once done, with the microSD still in your computer, browse the /boot/ directory and create a new file called ssh without a file extension. This file acts as a flag to enable SSH and enable remote connections. Use this…

“The moment-to- moment combat is distilled panic rather than empowerment. ” $99 | PC, PS4, XB1, STADIA, SWITCH | BETHESDA.NET I just finished Doom Eternal and I’m feeling anxious and exhausted. I’ve kneed the underside of my desk too many times to count from tensing up. My hands are soft from sweating and my knuckles crack when I try to make a fist. A computer game actually managed to hurt me. Doom Eternal is a celebration of excess. Excess in sin, in violence, scale, speed, and volume. I’ve never played a shooter this intense and demanding. Doom Eternal also runs beautifully on a wide range of hardware and feels designed for a mouse and keyboard first. It’s a modern classic, with a few caveats. Cheap deaths from getting stuck on…

$84 | PC | HALF-LIFE.COM/EN/ALYX I didn’t have much doubt Half-Life: Alyx would be a great VR experience – Valve makes its own VR headset and software, after all. But I was sceptical it could also be a great, proper Half-Life game, and I was thrilled to discover it really is. While it’s sandwiched between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 the repercussions of its story extend well into whatever future there is for the Half-Life series, and its technical accomplishments will leave most other developers, once again, struggling to keep up. Five years before the events of Half-Life 2, Alyx Vance is performing surveillance and recon in the Combine-controlled City 17. It’s immediately engaging to be back in City 17 again, so familiar yet so much more impressive…

$20 | PC | BIT.LY/3AKWVRU Corruption 2029 is set in a dystopian semi-post-apocalyptic America, split into a forever war between two indistinguishable factions: the enemy NAC (New American Council) and the player-aligned UPA (United Peoples of America). These wars are fought between ‘units’, soldiers that have been so heavily cybernetically augmented that they have seemingly lost all free will and are controlled remotely by drone-piloting commanders. There’s a real lack of personality here, especially compared to Mutant Year Zero, whose cast of loveable anthropomorphic weirdos were far more memorable. Even by the standards of XCOM, Corruption is wanting, with no visual customisations, no permanent levelling choices, and no permanent death, the units are as interchangeable and unmemorable as the fiction states they are. The environments are equally underwhelming, with the…

This collected trilogy has had quite the journey to PC. The three included games were originally released in 2001, 2002 and 2004 as Japan-exclusive GBA titles. After success over there, they made their English debut in North America and Europe, launching on the Nintendo DS. From there the trilogy was once again ported to the Nintendo Wii and iOS in 2013 and then again onto the 3DS in 2014. The three games finally made their debut onto PC last year, bundled as the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. The PC port lets new players experience the visual novel series for the first time, and allows fans to revisit the thrills of being back in the courtroom. Bouncing from console to console, you would think the trilogy would have been through…

Six new Comet Lake H 10th-gen mobile CPUs have been announced by Intel, and are expected to start appearing in partner laptops soon. These new CPUs compliment Intel’s lower power and lower performance Ice Lake 10th-gen CPUs, with Intel hoping these CPUs find their way mainly into gaming laptops. According to Intel “we’re focussed on frequency”, and the highest clocked CPU in the family – the i9-10980HK – peaks at an impressive 5.3GHz Turbo. All run at 45W at stock frequencies, but will run higher in Turbo mode, although Intel declined to reveal what that higher power consumption levels would be. We very much look forward to testing laptops equipped with these, and stacking them up against AMD’s 4000-series products. During the announcement Intel compared the CPUs with three-year-old products,…

AMD has announced that it had found stolen graphics IP posted online, followed quickly by news from Torrentfreak that the information pertains to source code for Big Navi and Arden GPUs. Torrentfreak claims to have contacted the hacker responsible, who in turn claims the information is worth US$100 million and is seeking bidders. AMD says that while the information hasn’t been posted yet, the leaked information is not core to its competitiveness and the company is taking legal actions to remedy the situation.…

FREEBOARD 5-X Turn any road into your very own snow field. US$325 | IGG.ME/AT/FREEBORD/X#/ While there’s no electronics in the Freeboard 5-X, there’s supposedly 23-years-worth of technology behind its creation. A worthy cause for a longboard that allows you to carve the concrete in a way that mimics snowboarding. The new movement is created by independent spring loaded trucks with hanger arms for each wheel and additional rotating seesaw wheels that allow you to roll from edge to edge as if you are riding a flat bottom board. The deck of the board also includes bindings that hold it to your feet so you can lean into turns even better and feel more confident in the air. SIGNIFY PHILIPS HUE OUTDOOR RANGE Low voltage, high impact smart LED…

I think it’s safe to assume that no business in the world has been totally unaffected by the spread of the coronavirus, and there have been a myriad of responses ranging from inspiring to downright disgraceful. One decision that sits towards the latter end of that spectrum seems to have come from Amazon – one of the few online marketplaces that has seen a considerable uptick in sales following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and which in 2019 recorded US$11.9 billion in annual profit. After announcing it would be hiring 100,000 workers to meet the new demand, Amazon explained that its army of contract workers would not receive paid sick leave, but were instead able to apply for a salary grant for any coronavirus related sick days through a…

In the fiercely competitive and innovative world of the PC, it’s always an exciting thrill seeing products and technologies come along and shake things up and move the industry forward. We use and choose good gear because of the performance on offer, the nice design, the new things it lets us do. We buy something for these reasons, and are always mindful of the value when comparing options. It is these tangibles that drive the Australian PC Awards each year. The Awards are a joint undertaking by several of Future Publishing’s technology titles, being APC, TechLife, PC PowerPlay, TechRadar and PC Gamer. The teams behind these magazines and sites live, love and breath PC tech, and together we have distilled all of the most notable releases of 2019 across all…

The XPS range is considered by many to have been the class-leading ultrabook for years now and it isn’t hard to see why. The most striking feature on the XPS 13 is undoubtedly the screen. Dell caught on early to the impact small bezels can make on the overall aesthetic of an ultrabook, and the infinity edge display looks more elegant than ever on the 2020 XPS 13. Key to this is the reduction of the bezels even further to make room for a 13.4-inch screen that adopts an all new 16x10 screen ratio. At 500 nits the anti-glare display is 25% brighter than its predecessor and the 4K resolution is crystal clear, making it excellent for work and media playback. The lack of bezels on all sides of the…

We’ve been reviewing Wi-Fi 6 routers, which utilise the latest 802.11AX standard, for a year now. However, while we’ve been devilishly impressed with the performance they afford, we’ve been less than impressed with their affordability. Asus’ new RT-AX3000 is very small and traditional looking compared with previous devices but it’s fully featured, supports Wi-Fi 6 and costs less than competitors. So, should you buy it? At first glance the RT-AX3000 might seem a little dull, but in a world of oversized spaceships and robot spiders, we welcome some normality. Set-up is performed either via a web browser or Asus’ mobile app. While the latter is simple and straightforward, the browser does rather overcomplicate things. Nonetheless, we had the internet up and running quickly. The 3000 denotes a theoretical top speed…

At this price, the Acer Predator CG7 is certainly one of the more expensive gaming monitors you can buy right now – but then it’s also one of the largest (apart from those 65-inch Nvidia Big Format Gaming Display (BFGD) monitors like the HP Omen X Emperium 65). However, when compared to 43-inch 4K TVs, like the Panasonic GX800, it’s also pretty pricey, and many 40-inch 4K TVs can be had for half the price, and offer comparable visual quality, including HDR support. What these sets don’t offer, however, is the high refresh rates and gaming-centric features of the Acer Predator CG7. So, it’s clear that this is a monitor that’s aimed at people who want to game on a large TV, while also benefiting from tech usually found in…

Back in 2017, Samsung unleashed its third-generation T5 Portable SSD, instantly becoming a favourite amongst those who like their storage solutions to boast incredibly fast transfer speeds and secure encryption. Now, the South Korean manufacturer is offering its long-awaited follow-up in the Samsung T7 Touch Portable SSD, a device that manages to improve on a product that was already near-perfect. Available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, the T7 Touch’s biggest selling point is undoubtedly the inclusion of a biometric fingerprint scanner for added security and convenience. The T7 Touch looks very similar to the T5 but is a tiny bit bigger and heavier. 85 x 57 x 8.0mm for a weight of 58g for the former and 74 x 57.3 x 10.5mm for a weight of 51g for the…

Mission Control gets more useful. US$9.99 | FADEL.IO NEEDS MACOS 10.13 OR LATER Mission Control; you either swear by it or never use it. For users of Macs with large screens especially – where it’s more likely there will be lots of apps running and windows open – it makes it easy to cut through the clutter. However, Mission Control, useful though it is, isn’t perfect. And, sadly, Apple has done little to add to its features over the years. Step forward Mission Control Plus. This handy little app makes Mission Control even more useful, allowing you to close windows while they’re all still displayed on screen. It also has a handful of keyboard shortcuts so you can hide windows, open apps, or quit them quickly. In use, Mission Control Plus…

How to excel. FREE TO DOWNLOAD | OFFICE.COM The newly consolidated Microsoft Office app now collects everything into one place, so you can organise your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files all in one place, as long as they’re uploaded to the cloud. This means that you no longer need to have three separate apps on your phone or tablet, which makes things a bit tidier. You can work on your files or make new ones from the app, too, and it works much better than the atrocious Google Docs app (although unfortunately you can’t share files so easily as you can through there). Is the Microsoft Office app a perfect substitute for using these applications on a home computer or laptop? Not at all – trying to build a PowerPoint…

The coronavirus pandemic is pretty awful, but you already knew that. It has disrupted your life in one way or another, marginally or monumentally. People everywhere have lost their jobs, shuttered their small businesses, been sent home from universities or have themselves been one of the people worldwide diagnosed with COVID-19. More fortunate folks are working from home, cancelling travel, distancing from friends and adjusting daily routines. Wherever your life lands on the spectrum of the coronavirus’ far-reaching effects, you’ve probably adopted a “when things get back to normal” attitude as you touch base with pals, or make plans for some undisclosed time in the future. “There’s a chance that what you considered normal a month ago won’t be the same in a month or two. Normal evolves constantly, but…

There’s something to be said for connecting with your family history – the thrill of rediscovering your ancestors cannot be matched as you piece together their lives through documents, digging out old family photos and even making contact with distant cousins to share and uncover more insights. These days, most of that research can be done online, and if you know where to look you can make major inroads into developing and expanding your tree without spending hundreds of pounds on expensive subscriptions. The place to start is www.familysearch.org – this doesn’t simply provide a giant, shared tree of human existence, but it’s also a repository of information, including documents, photos and useful resources for further research via its wiki (www.familysearch.org/wiki/). You’ll need somewhere to store all this information, and…

Data Crow (www.datacrow.net) makes it possible to create and maintain a catalogue of important items. Built-in modules cover books, contacts, audio CDs, movies (including TV), but you can build your own custom modules too. Once installed, select your collection type using the icons beneath the menu bar. From here choose ‘File > Item Wizard’ to enter the first item in your collection. You’ll see that Data Crow links into several online databases – sadly, at time of writing, both IMDB and Amazon don’t work, but thankfully other online databases offered by the program do. Select your database, type in your title and with a bit of luck you’ll find the exact item you own (multiple editions may exist, forcing you to review each one manually). You can then add this…

These days, we consume media – from music and photos to movies and TV – on a variety of devices in various locations. Digital media is both liberating and yet constricting at the same time. If you’ve built up a huge media library and want quick and easy access to it from any location, then you need a media server. A media server allows you to collect all the media you own the copyright to together in one location – your PC’s main storage, a USB-attached drive or even a network-attached drive – and then access it from just about any smart device you own – other computers, your phone or tablet, even the set-top box or smart TV in your living room. It provides you with a consistent experience…

Step one of the troubleshooting process is to identify whether your problem is hardware or Windows-related. If your PC powers on, passes its initial checks (known as the POST, or Power On Self Test) and gets as far as the Windows logo before things go wrong, your problem is likely to be related to your Windows installation – turn the page to find out how to diagnose and fix it. If you can’t even get as far as this, then your problem is likely to be linked to your hardware – it may be a simple physical problem or something more fundamental like component failure. Here’s what you need to do. PC WON’T POWER ON AT ALL If nothing happens – literally – when you press the power button then…

First, the good news: your hardware appears to be in good working order. Now the bad news: finding out what’s happened to Windows. There are two routes to follow here: the first involves Windows’ built-in repair tools, summarised opposite. The problem may be accessing them. Windows’ first recourse is its own Start-up Repair tool, which should run automatically after a failed attempt to load. If it fails to fix the problem after several attempts, it should bring up the advanced start-up tool with the all-important Troubleshoot button under ‘Choose an option’. ACCESS START-UP REPAIR If this fails to appear you can try interrupting the boot sequence manually as soon as you see the Windows logo appear by pressing the reset button to trigger the advanced start-up tool, but if Windows…

If you’re unable to get Windows working in any form, and you have no recent backup to fall back on, then you’re left with two options: a full-blown reinstall. If Automatic Repair is unable to fix your PC and gives you the option, choose ‘Advanced options’ followed by Troubleshoot and finally ‘Reset this PC’. Start by with the ‘Keep my files’ option – you’ll see there’s no option to preserve your apps. This – the equivalent of a repair installation – is only available through Windows. There’s also an option to reset and remove everything, but we’re inclined to suggest that if you’re going to go down this route – having backed up everything first of course – that a brand new install using your Windows installation media is the…

Your personal files – photos, documents, media files and so on – change more frequently than Windows. While rolling back your PC a day or even a week won’t have too disruptive an effect on your programs, you could find yourself losing hours or even days of work. If you’ve not moved your key data folders to another partition or drive, we recommend you store your key data in your cloud provider’s folder – OneDrive being the obvious example – so the latest version is always being synced. When you roll back your PC, the older versions of your files will be restored to disk, but your cloud provider should detect this and download the latest versions of your files back to your PC automatically. Keep a close eye on…

16GB (2x 8GB) GeIL Evo Potenza @ 3,000MHz $115, WWW.GEIL.COM.TW It’s truly incredible how much memory pricing has shifted over the last few years. The ability to buy 16 gigabytes of high-speed RAM for a mere 115 dollars might seem almost absurd to tech heads who have been building PCs for years; even more recent recruits to the system-building community have to admit that memory is in a very affordable place right now. GeIL’s Evo Potenza memory is fantastic value, an ideal way to upgrade to the 16GB mark if you’re still rocking a 4GB or 8GB system. 16GB will leave any system well equipped for the next generation of hardware and software, and now is a good time to make that leap.…

By selecting a subject from one photo and adding it to another you can have fun producing creative composite images. In this walkthrough, we’ll replace a dog with a lioness to demonstrate the process of selecting a complex object. Photoshop Elements 2020 boasts new tools that are designed to speed up selections, such as the one-click Select Subject command. However most of these quick selections will need some refining to cleanly isolate a subject from their background. Fortunately, the Refine Edge command has all the tools you need to create a clean selection. We’ll also show you how to transform the size of the selected object so that it fits into the new scene. To complete the illusion, we’ll add a shadow to our composited lioness to help anchor her…

1 UBUNTU TOUCH On paper, Ubuntu Touch should be the touch OS of choice for Raspberry Pi users. It’s been in development for years, continued beyond Canonical’s abandonment thanks to the UBports team, and recently added Raspberry Pi support. However, builds are unreliable at this stage. While Ubuntu Touch might be the best option for Raspberry Pi tablet projects in future, try at your own risk (http://bit.ly/LXF261-ubports). 2 SAILPI (SAILFISH OS) While Sailfish OS has been abandoned, a version was released for the Raspberry Pi 2. Dubbed SailPi, it combines the Sailfish OS with support for the Pi’s GPIO. Sadly, the project hasn’t been updated within the past five years, but if you’re looking for a basic OS with a web browser, this is good enough. You can grab SailPi…

The first six months of 2020 haven’t exactly been the rosiest way to ring in a new decade. If it hasn’t been bushfires blackening huge chunks of the eastern Australian seaboard, its coronavirus sweeping across the globe. Not to mention our crazy new relationship with toilet paper. But as the pandemic spreads, artificial intelligence and its components of machine-learning and data-mining are playing vital roles in the fight. We look at some key players and how you can learn to analyse infection rate data yourself. ANALYSING THE EARLY DATA One of the earliest published reports on the new 2019 novel coronavirus (originally dubbed ‘2019-nCoV’ and now ‘COVID-19’) was written by Chinese medical scientists and published in late-January 2020 in The Lancet medical journal. You can read it online at www.thelancet.com/action/showPd…

$28 | PC, LINUX | CROWBARCOLLECTIVE.COM The Half-Life series is really just one long bad day at work, and Black Mesa is a Valve-approved, albeit entirely fan-made, chance to relive Gordon Freeman’s disastrous morning – but with prettier visuals, combat and physics lifted from Half-Life 2, bigger levels, and other upgrades. Black Mesa sticks closely to Half-Life in terms of structure. You take the tram into work, watch in horror as the resonance cascade floods the facility with aliens, dodge headcrabs in the office complex, clash with the HECU Marines, deal with giant tentacles in the blast pit, fight through a warzone on the surface, navigate the radioactive Lambda Core, and finally visit Xen. But everything is bigger, more detailed, and more dramatic, with production values in line with Half-Life…

TikTok pressures mods to filter out ugly people Video companies told moderators to only promote videos by the wealthy, no ‘chubbys’. In a series of internal documents leaked to The Intercept, it has been revealed that Chinese micro-video social media company TikTok has been systematically encouraging the suppression of content containing unattractive, impoverished, or disabled users. The internal document instructed moderators to exclude any videos in the promoted ‘For You’ section that included people who are or have an: “Abnormal body shape, chubby, obvious beer belly, obese, or too thin (not limited to: dwarf, acromegaly)[sic]”. It also required the exclusion of those with ‘ugly facial looks’, “senior people with too many wrinkles”, anything shot in ‘shabby’ environments and those with “eye disorders, crooked mouth disease and other disabilities”. New IR…

The notebook market has not been kind to AMD over the last decade – for a long time the company was only ever seen as the discount option for those on a strict budget. Fast forward to 2020, and notebook users are eagerly awaiting the arrival of products based on AMD’s latest Ryzen Mobile 4000 series processors, which combine up to eight Zen 2 cores and upgraded Vega graphics into a small CPU for the notebook market. These parts are designed for ultraportable notebooks, and AMD has a number of design wins lined up to show just how good an AMD system can be. The same silicon will also go into 45W-class notebooks, with a higher base frequency. These parts are geared more towards discrete graphics options, for gaming notebooks…

We’re getting closer to the release of the next generation of gaming consoles, the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. Both take a big step forward over their predecessors. With developers having better baseline hardware and technologies to develop for, PC gamers will benefit too. Both consoles are due for release later in 2020, though with the ongoing pandemic dominating the global narrative, there’s the possibility we may see one or both fall back to 2021. Let’s have a look at the hardware. Both consoles will run AMD 8-core Zen 2 processors. While it’s likely there will be some system specific instructions, they can be considered largely similar to their desktop counterparts. The Xbox Series X CPU will run up to 3.8GHz, while the PS5 one will run up…

FINALISTS: Nvidia RTX AMD Ryzen 3rd-gen CPUs Intel Ice Lake 10th gen mobile CPUs AMD Zen 2 chiplet architecture TSMC’s 7nm process Phison PS50 series SSD controllers OLED screens Wi-Fi 6 Intel Project Athena WINNER: AMD Zen 2 chiplet architecture Set the foundation for an unprecedented disruption in CPU pricing and performance – the effects of which will be seen for many years – and is the most significant and impactful evolution in PC CPU design since the first dual-core desktop processor in 2005, pushing single processors to 64 cores and beyond.…

The ThinkBook 14 range from Lenovo is pitched at small business employees or anyone who is willing to accept a little more bulk in their ultrabook to avoid a flagship’s premium price tag. This doesn’t mean that the ThinkBook 14 isn’t suitably powerful however, in fact, if you’re looking at performance over cost then this unit offers similar performance to a Yoga C940 for around $900 less, which is a pretty compelling reason for the business-minded to take note. For this price cut you will have to be willing to sacrifice on total battery capacity and the screen on the ThinkBook 14 is one of the dullest we’ve seen in a while, but the 250nit FullHD non-touch display is at least usable if turned to 100%. And while the exterior…

Last year, we drooled over Asus’ RT-AX92U Wi-Fi-6-based mesh, which resembled two small routers, connected over a 5GHz backhaul connection, that could provide a single, Ethernet-like internet connection all over the house. We loved the bombproof reliability and speed it offered to everything that connected to it. Now here’s a cheaper AC version which is more consumer friendly in terms of looks, price and setup. How does it fare? We think this might be the simplest device setup we’ve ever experienced (which is saying something with Wi-Fi). After downloading the partner app, the phone found the router and connected to it without us doing anything. It asked for Wi-Fi network names and whether we wanted two separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands or use one, combined network and then it just…

As first world problems go, the fact that it’s hard to find a PC monitor with more than eight million pixels has got to be up there. But if you want a truly high density display, your options are limited. Yes, you can choose from a huge array of 4K UHD monitors, but 4K doesn’t automatically equal high DPI. Take a typical 32-inch 4K screen. That works out at 138 pixels per inch, not much higher than the circa 100 dpi that most flat panel monitors have offered for years. You can, of course, achieve higher pixel density with the same resolution via a smaller panel. A 24-inch 4K monitor clocks in at a decent 184 dpi. But who wants to pay big bucks for a mere 24-inch monitor? Enter,…

“It combines the plug and play ease of an external HDD with the connectivity options of a dock into a single unit that’s connected via a Thunderbolt 3 cable” Docking stations aren’t anything new, and neither are external hard drives, but how about combining them both? That’s exactly what Seagate has done with its FireCuda Gaming Dock. It combines the plug and play ease of an external HDD with the connectivity options of a dock into a single unit that’s connected via a Thunderbolt 3 cable. We have to say, it looks really awesome too. The FireCuda Gaming Dock is a somewhat unusual looking device. The majority of it is basically a drab looking box, but there’s a stylised section that features RGB lighting, and the overall effect is a…

Working from home might be a shock for some. Try to create a routine like you would have at the office, and stick to your regular work schedule. Take your breaks but also don’t be afraid to detune from work. Instead of going to a mess room like you might do at lunch time, head out into the garden, have lunch with your kids or even play a round of PUBG! Take the opportunity to recharge. We’re living in a world in upheaval, on a level not seen since World War II. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is dominating world headlines with health systems facing unprecedented strain, the global economy taking a pummelling and financial markets in meltdown. Whether it’s work, recreation, social gatherings or travelling, it’s all in a state…

You’ve finally got your photos in some kind of order. But what’s the point of having them buried away in folders if you’ve no means of showing the best of them off? You could invest in a digital photo frame for your front room, run a slideshow as your desktop backdrop in Windows (head over to ‘Settings > Personalisation > Background’ to set it up) or create a photos slideshow running as a screen saver (type ‘screen saver’ into the Search box to find the tool, then choose Photos from the ‘Screen saver’ drop-down menu). Remember when older family members set up slideshow presentations of their latest holiday? Recreate the effect via a video-based slideshow, with added music, effects and captions to help describe what’s going on and keep your…

So you constantly struggle to stay on top of your finances? Can’t ever seem to work out exactly where your money goes or how much is currently in your bank accounts? What you need is a personal finance tool – and if you’ve been relying on Quicken or Money for the task, then it’s high time you switched to something more modern (and guaranteed to remain compatible with Windows 10). There are two basic options for you going forward. If you’re happy to restrict your management to desktop and laptop computers, then HomeBank (http://homebank.free.fr/ en/index.php) is the perfect choice. You can import data from Quicken or Money, then use it to record, track and analyse your financial ins and outs, giving you everything you need to get on top of…

Music is far more than just the food of love – it’s nourishment for our very soul. And what better way is there to express yourself than through music? It’s never too late to pick up an instrument, whether starting from scratch or picking up where you left off years – or even decades – ago. The good news is that your PC can provide you with all the support you need to develop your musical abilities as well as record your ongoing progress and even provide you with the means of writing your own pieces. Start with PlayPerfect (www. nchsoftware.com/practice/), a free program to help you practice your instrument between lessons. It provides a series of pieces to play along to through your microphone, using an optional metronome to…

If your PC completes the POST, but then throws up an error about not finding a bootable operating system, start by restarting your PC, then tapping the key (typically Del or F2) to enter the BIOS (also known as the UEFI or Setup Utility). Look to see if your Windows drive has been detected – if it’s not showing in the BIOS, check the drive cables inside your case. Still no luck? There’s a possibility the drive itself has physically failed – if possible, remove it and use an external enclosure, drive caddy or USB-to-SATA adapter (around $5 on eBay) to connect it to a working PC and see if it’s recognised and its contents accessible. If the drive is recognised by your BIOS, but you still can’t access it,…

If necessary, switch to a working PC and download the Media Creation Tool from www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10 - once done, launch the tool. When prompted, choose ‘Create installation media’ after plugging in your flash drive or inserting a blank DVD and click Next. Verify the language, edition and architecture are the same as your affected PC (untick the ‘recommended options’ box and change them if not – use ‘Both’ for Architecture if not known). Click Next, choose whether to create a USB flash drive or create an ISO file for DVD, then click Next and follow the wizard through to its end, clicking ‘Open DVD burner’ if applicable.…

1 THE ONE-CLICK FIX Open Windows Recovery, select your Windows installation if necessary and click OK. At the Overview screen, start by clicking the ‘One Click Fix Crash Solution’ option. Click ‘One Click Fix’ to run the wizard. Review the results and click Finish. 2 TRY A SPECIFIC FIX If the one-click fix doesn’t solve your problem, examine the BootCrash tab where you’ll see a selection of individual tools from MBR Repair to Missing Windows File Repair. Select one and if it matches your symptoms, click the button to apply it. 3 KEEP SEARCHING The LoadingCrash tab offers more tools, including shortcuts to System Restore and a Registry Recovery tool. This latter tool will attempt to detect – and fix – Registry corruption. Some programs may need reinstalling if this…

1 BOOT FROM RESCUE MEDIA Insert your rescue media and start your PC. Look for an option to select the boot menu and press the key, then select your rescue media from the list (choose the UEFI option if the media appears twice). Wait for the familiar Macrium Reflect interface to load. 2 SELECT BACKUP TO RESTORE Your backups should be detected and appear in the Image Restore tab. If a particular backup doesn’t appear, click the ‘Browse for an image file…’ button to manually locate it. Once done, click ‘Restore Image’ next to the latest backup in the list. 3 VERIFY DESTINATION, THEN RESTORE Verify your backup matches the destination drive, which should be your Windows drive. If necessary, drag the partitions from the top to their corresponding locations…

Aftershock Zeal $2,437 – TINYURL.COM/APC480AFT In what appears to be a Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic chassis, but is actually a ‘clone’ design of one, this build offers unobstructed views through the front and side tempered glass windows. The image shown also showcases a glimpse of the customisation possible beyond the recommended configuration we’re showcasing, with RGB fans and a different graphics card shown but it should help illustrate how good looking a system is possible if you start piling on the RGB add-on options at checkout. The specs all around are quite solid, offering a well-matched CPU and GPU combination with a good storage configuration and perfect memory speed choice. A well specced out system for 1440p gaming. KEY SPECS: CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, COOLER: Aftershock…

Modern cameras can shoot at extremely high framerates, and storage cards are cheap. Putting these together means it’s not unusual to return from holiday with a lot of photos to sort through, and as we’re no longer in the habit of printing every image we capture only one or two exceptional shots from a trip will eventually be pulled out for use. To get to this stage, you need to be organised. Having a hard drive full of image files can be enormously satisfying, right up until the point you need to find something. If your files are not organised, it can be a wearying task to trawl through folders looking for images. Here, we’ll look at importing your files through ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate, and using GPS data and…

Apple’s media tools have had something of an overhaul in recent years, and the dumping of iTunes from the Mac and its replacement with Music, Podcasts, and TV seemed to be the final piece in the puzzle. But there was one last piece to fit, the apparently forgotten and often maligned Remote iOS app. Now over 10 years old, the Remote app once let you control iTunes playback on your Mac or an iTunes server on your network, or even on an Apple TV. It seemed to be on its way out along with iTunes. But an update to macOS and iOS in December breathed new life into it, and gave it the ability to control both the Music and TV apps in macOS Catalina. You can navigate playlists, cue…

After success of its digital shopfront, Epic Games will move into publishing The company behind Fortnite has big plans. Epic Games, the behemoth company behind Fortnite, Unreal Engine 4 and the Epic Games Store, is moving into multiplatform publishing – and it’s already secured some deals with top developers. Three studios, including Remedy (Alan Wake, Control) Playdead (Limbo, Inside) and Gen Design (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) have signed up to be published with Epic Games Publishing, which offers some virtually unprecedented transparency when it comes to its publishing deal terms. For example, Epic claims it will cover all associated development costs, running the gamut from wages through to marketing. Once Epic has recouped its costs following release, studios will receive fifty percent or more thereafter. Most importantly for games…

FREE | PC | PIXELSHUH. ITCH.IO/THE-SUPPER This is a game about rooting out ingredients, and bunging them in a big, bubbling cooking pot, before serving them up to your guests and… seeing what happens. It’s a twisty interactive fantasy story, made by an emerging master of the form, Octavi Navarro. You might know the developer for the Midnight Scenes anthology series. Well, this is darker, more confidently written and drawn than those sci-fi point-and-clicks.The dockside fantasy setting reminds me a little of the Monkey Island series, but the comedy here is far more grotesque in nature, as you make three dishes for your three important guests. With little dialogue, The Supper tells a violent story, in the vein of Sweeney Todd, but it confidently becomes its own thing by the…

FREE | BROWSER | BIT. LY/2ITWKFW The problem with Tetris is that it’s too easy. One falling block at a time, and a single pile to take care of. No, what the game needs is four piles of Tetris blocks. Basically, what Tetris needs is to be four games at once. This game has achieved this by taking away the time pressure: you’re given all the time in the world to align each tetromino. The rub is that, as it falls automatically to the bottom of the screen, it will also fall to the left, to the right, and to the top of three other playing fields, with the block splitting into four right after you select its trajectory. You can position and rotate the block before it falls, it…

FREE | PC, MAC | KLAIIS. ITCH.IO/RESPITE Respite – surely the world’s most chilled out adventure game – explores the hazy morning after the stressed-out night before.After (eventually) getting up, here you’ll explore your swish shared apartment, traipsing to the living room, the kitchen, even into your flatmates’ rooms while they’re away. Not that the game sees this as a violation of personal space, as you’ve volunteered yourself to water the plants in their absence. Really, you’re there to find little notes from a well-meaning flatmate, who gently insists that you’ve been working too hard, and should probably take a rare day off today. The backstory unfolds as you read these cute little missives, and as you examine fixtures inside your cluttered home. This is a sweet, refreshingly mellow and…