Previously thought to be delayed to 2022, the free upgrade to Windows 11 from Windows 10 will now begin from October 5, 2021. Microsoft announced that from this day, Windows 10 PCs should receive the free upgrade to Windows 11. Desktops and notebooks with pre-installed Windows 11 will also be available from this day. Microsoft however put out this disclaimer: "The Windows 11 upgrade will start to be delivered to qualifying devices beginning on October 5, 2021 into 2022. Timing varies by device." Windows 11 introduces an overhaul to the user interface, with more of Modern UI replacing Win32. To gamers and PC enthusiasts, Windows 11 offers DirectX 12 Ultimate, DirectStorage, and Audio HDR, as well as optimization for the next breed of hybrid-core processors, such as the 12th Gen Intel "Alder Lake."

DirectX 12 Ultimate is the next generation for gaming graphics. It adds powerful new capabilities to DirectX 12, including DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading (VRS). These features help game developers improve visual quality, boost frame rates, reduce loading times, and create vast, detailed worlds.

3DMark already has dedicated tests for DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, and Variable Rate Shading. Today, we're adding a Sampler Feedback feature test, making 3DMark the first publicly available application to include all four major DirectX 12 Ultimate features. Experience DirectX 12 Ultimate today, only with 3DMark! Measure performance and compare image quality on your PC with our DirectX 12 Ultimate feature tests. Each test also has an interactive mode that lets you change settings and visualizations in real time.

Intel Vice President and General Manager of Client Graphics Products and Solutions Roger Chandler has recently announced that the companies upcoming Arc gaming graphics cards will include overclocking support at launch through the official driver UI. This offering may resemble that of AMD's with their Radeon Software that offers various overclocking tools including clock speeds, power settings, and fan curves. Intel has also been working on various other driver improvements in the lead-up to release including enhancing shader compiling and improving throughput. The post also confirmed the implementation of complete DirectX 12 Ultimate compliance which will enable variable-rate shading tier 2 and mesh shading. Intel is expected to release the first Arc gaming graphics cards for desktops and notebooks in Q1 2022.

IntelWe're even integrating overclocking controls into the driver UI to give enthusiasts the tools they need to push the hardware to the limit.

It's happening, Intel is taking a very pointy stab at the AAA gaming graphics market, taking the fight to NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon. The Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPU implements the Xe HPG (high performance gaming) graphics architecture, and offers full DirectX 12 Ultimate compatibility. It also offers contemporary features gamers want, such as XeSS, an AI-supersampling feature rivaling DLSS and FSR. There's a lot more to the Xe HPG architecture than being a simple a scale-up from the Xe LP-based iGPUs found in today's "Tiger Lake" processors.

Just like Compute Units on AMD GPUs, and Streaming Multiprocessors on NVIDIA, Intel designed a scalable hierarchical compute hardware structure for Xe HPG. It begins with the Xe-core, an indivisible compute building block that contains 16 each of 256-bit vector engines and 1024-bit matrix engines. combined with basic load/store hardware and an L1 cache. The vector unit here is interchangeable with the execution unit, and the Xe-core contains 16 of these. The Render Slice is a collective of four Xe-cores, four Raytracing Units; and other common fixed-function hardware that include the geometry pipeline, rasterization pipeline, samplers, and pixel-backends. The Raytracing Units contain fixed-function hardware for bounding-box intersection, ray traversal, and triangle intersection.

Intel plans to go full tilt with gaming graphics, with its newly announced Arc line of graphics processors designed for high-performance gaming. The top Arc "Alchemist" part meets all requirements for DirectX 12 Ultimate logo, including real-time raytracing. The company, during the technology's reveal, earlier this week, also said that it's working on an AI-accelerated supersampling technology. The company is calling it XeSS (Xe SuperSampling). It likely went with Xe in the name, as it possibly plans to extend the technology to even its Xe LP-based iGPUs and the entry-level Iris Xe MAX discrete GPU.

Intel claims that XeSS cuts down 4K frame render-times by half. By all accounts, 1440p appears to be the target use case of the top Arc "Alchemist" SKU. XeSS would make 4K possible (i.e., display resolution set at 4K, rendering at a lower resolution, with AI-accelerated supersampling restoring detail). The company revealed that XeSS will use a neural network-based temporal upscaling technology that incorporates motion vectors. In the rendering pipeline, XeSS sits before most post-processing stages, similar to AMD FSR.

While AMD's FSR technology is purely shader based, the Intel algorithm can either use XMX hardware units (new in Intel Xe HPG), or DP4a instructions (available on nearly all modern AMD and NVIDIA GPUs). XMX stands for Xe Matrix Extensions and is basically Intel's version of NVIDIA's Tensor Cores, to speed up matrix math, which is used in many AI-related tasks. The Intel XeSS SDK will be available this month, in open source, using XMX hardware, the DP4a version will be available "later this year".

Intel today surprised us with the reveal of its new high-performance gaming graphics brand, Intel Arc. Competing with the AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce brands, Arc enables Intel to take a stab at the gaming graphics market that's been a duopoly for the past 2 decades; and the company doesn't intend to only make low-cost e-sports chips. As if a statement of intent, the company revealed the codenamed of the first three generations of Arc: "Battlemage," "Celestial," and "Druid."

Of these "Battlemage" is likely the fancy new codename for the Xe HPG graphics architecture, which has been implemented in a working prototype referred to as the DG2, and which Intel is now referring to as "Alchemist." Intel revealed that "Battlemage" is being designed to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate requirements, which means it will support hardware-accelerated real-time raytracing; mesh shaders, sampler feedback, and variable-rate shading. Intel also announced that the chips will feature an AI-accelerated supersampling feature. This will rival NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. Intel announced that the first consumer products based on the "Alchemist" silicon will release in the first quarter of 2022, the company will put out more specifics throughout 2021, in the run-up to this launch.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announced availability of the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card, engineered to deliver exceptional high-framerate, high-fidelity 1080p gaming.

Built on breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card has everything a gamer needs and more. It offers 32 powerful compute units, 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache, 8 GB of high-speed GDDR6 memory, and AMD Smart Access Memory, among many other advanced features for the next-level immersive gaming experience. With game clock speeds up to 2359 MHz and boost clock speeds up to 2589 MHz, the BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card can easily handle the latest AAA games thrown at it.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today launched new Phantom Gaming and Challenger series products based on AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT GPUs. The new ASRock graphics cards are built on the 7 nm manufacturing process and AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, and include support for the DirectX 12 Ultimate API, hardware-accelerated raytracing, HDMI 2.1, and PCI Express 4.0. In addition, with high-speed 8 GB GDDR6 memory plus a wealth of exclusive features, the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT series graphics cards can provide the ultimate 1080p gaming performance.

The high-end ASRock AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Phantom Gaming D 8 GB OC graphics card features the triple-fan Phantom Gaming 3X cooling system for excellent cooling performance, as well as a unique Striped Axial Fan, Air Deflecting Fin and Ultra-fit Heatpipe to greatly increase cooling efficiency. The stylish metal backplate strengthens the structure and prevents damage to the board. With the addition of an ARGB fan, ARGB LED board, and Polychrome SYNC lighting control software, users can fully customize and control their own lighting system. The cool black and red appearance and the ultimate factory-preset overclocking settings make ASRock AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Phantom Gaming D 8 GB OC graphics card ideal for hardcore gamers.

AMD today announced the new Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card, its latest entrant to the RX 6000 series, based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, with full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including raytracing. The RX 6600 XT is suitable for AAA gaming at 1080p, or e-sports gaming at 1440p. The card debuts the new 7 nm Navi 23 silicon to the desktop, and maxes it out. It is endowed with 2,048 stream processors across 32 RDNA2 compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide memory interface, holding 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 16 Gbps (256 GB/s bandwidth). The chip also has 32 MB of Infinity Cache memory. With a board power of 160 W, the card can make do with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The game clocks are up to 2359 MHz.

As for performance, AMD claims that the RX 6600 XT offers a 2.2-2.5 times performance gain over the GeForce GTX 1060, providing a viable upgrade. It also offers a 40% performance uplift over the previous-generation RX 5600 XT, and runs consistently faster than the RX 5700, perhaps even trading blows with the RX 5700 XT. In the current generation, AMD claims a 15% performance lead over the GeForce RTX 3060 on average, with both cards having Resizable BAR / Smart Access Memory enabled, at 1080p. Available from August 10, the card starts at USD $379, and is a partner-exclusive, meaning that only custom-design cards will be available, the company will not sell reference design ones.

AMD board partner PowerColor's website briefly showed product categories for graphics cards based on the upcoming Radeon RX 6600 XT and Radeon RX 6600 graphics processors. This would mean that a formal launch of the two is just around the corner. Both SKUs are reportedly based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon. The RX 6600 XT maxes it out, featuring 2,048 stream processors, while the RX 6600 is slightly cut down, in featuring 1,792 of them. The "Navi 23" silcon is based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 series, which means DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including raytracing. Both feature 8 GB of video memory, whereas the RX 6600 also comes in 4 GB. Both memory options use 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, over a 128-bit wide memory bus. PowerColor is expected to design a variety of custom-design products based on the two.

Microsoft's ambitious DirectStorage API, which attempts to solve the storage bottleneck in games, facilitating faster game load times, has been walled off from Windows 10. To use it, games now require the new Windows 11 operating system, and a GPU that supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate API. This limits the GPU choices to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 20-series, RTX 30-series, and AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series.

The other hardware requirement intrinsic to DirectStorage is for you to use an NVMe SSD that uses Microsoft's "Standard NVM Express Controller" driver that's included with Windows. Another hardware requirement that's baffling is that the SSD should be at least 1 TB in capacity. DirectStorage facilitates compressed game asset data to be transferred directly to the GPU from the storage device, and for it to be uncompressed by the GPU (using compute shaders), so there is a significant reduction in storage sub-system latency, and CPU utilization, impacting game load times.

AMD today released the Radeon RX 6000M series mobile graphics lineup, based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture. These GPUs offer full DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness, including real-time raytracing capability. The lineup is led by the Radeon RX 6800M, followed by the RX 6700M, and the RX 6600M. The RX 6800M and RX 6700M are based on the 7 nm "Navi 22" silicon, while the RX 6600M debuts the "Navi 23" silicon. The RX 6800M appears to be maxing out the "Navi 22" silicon, much like the desktop RX 6700 XT. It features 40 RDNA2 compute units, amounting to 2,560 stream processors; game clocks of up to 2.30 GHz, 12 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit wide memory interface, and 96 MB of Infinity Cache. The RX 6700M is slightly cut down, with 36 compute units (2,304 stream processors), the same 2.30 GHz game clocks, 10 GB of video memory possibly across a 160-bit wide memory bus, and 80 MB of Infinity Cache.

The new RX 6600M debuts the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon, with 28 RDNA2 compute units, game clocks of 2177 MHz, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit wide memory bus, and 32 MB of Infinity Cache. All three chips feature Smart Access Memory (resizable BAR), and support for AMD SmartShift, a feature that load-balances the discrete GPU with an AMD iGPU. AMD claims that the RX 6800M and RX 6700M are fit for 1440p gaming, with the RX 6800M beating the RTX 2070 Notebook by anywhere between 40-70%, and 120 FPS in a large selection of e-sports titles. The company also claims that the RX 6800M beats the GeForce RTX 3080 8 GB by 14-39%. The RX 6600M, meanwhile is shown matching the RTX 3060 6 GB, in AMD's tests. Notebooks powered by AMD Radeon RX 6000M discrete graphics are shipping now.The graphics press-deck follows.

Microsoft on Tuesday, in a developer presentation, confirmed that the DirectStorage API, designed to speed up the storage sub-system, is compatible even with NVMe SSDs that use the PCI-Express Gen 3 host interface. It also confirmed that all GPUs compatible with DirectX 12 support the feature. A feature making its way to the PC from consoles, DirectStorage enables the GPU to directly access an NVMe storage device, paving the way for GPU-accelerated decompression of game assets.

This works to reduce latencies at the storage sub-system level, and offload the CPU. Any DirectX 12-compatible GPU technically supports DirectStorage, according to Microsoft. The company however recommends DirectX 12 Ultimate GPUs "for the best experience." The GPU-accelerated game asset decompression is handled via compute shaders. In addition to reducing latencies; DirectStorage is said to accelerate the Sampler Feedback feature in DirectX 12 Ultimate.More slides from the presentation follow.

Intel Graphics tweeted a marketing splash screen of its upcoming Xe HPG gaming discrete graphics architecture. There's not much to the video, except announcing the Xe HPG logo. It starts off with a depiction of the Xe LP architecture, on which the company's Gen12 iGPUs and Iris Xe MAX entry-level discrete GPUs are based; and swells into a larger silicon that grows in all directions. The animation could be a hint that Xe HPG chips will be an order of magnitude faster than the Iris Xe MAX, target serious gaming, and take the fight to both NVIDIA and AMD.

Intel is designing the Xe HPG graphics architecture for third-party silicon fabrication nodes, such as TSMC and Samsung, and could leverage a sub-10 nm node to significantly scale up from the Xe LP. A recent report pointed to the likelihood of 512 execution units on a certain Xe HPG variant (4,096 unified shaders) and contemporary GDDR6 memory, while Intel has the necessary IP to pull off DirectX 12 Ultimate logo readiness, including raytracing. Intel is likely eyeing a slice of the e-sports hardware segment, although a high-end GPU cannot be completely ruled out. Watch the video from the source link below.

DirectX 12 Ultimate adds powerful new features and capabilities to DirectX 12 including DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading (VRS). After DirectX 12 Ultimate was announced, we started adding new tests to 3DMark to show how games can benefit from these new features. Our latest addition is the 3DMark Mesh Shader feature test, a new test that shows how game developers can boost frame rates by using mesh shaders in the graphics pipeline.

Intel's head for architecture, software, and graphics divisions, Raja Koduri, on Wednesday (10/02) teased a Xe HPG discrete GPU prototype running the upcoming 3DMark DirectX 12 Mesh Shaders feature test. Mesh Shaders are one of the four key features for graphics solutions to achieve the DirectX 12 Ultimate logo readiness, the other three being Real-time raytracing, Variable Rate Shading, and Sampler Feedback. Intel has already been supporting VRS tier-1 since Gen11, and the new Gen12 Xe LP carries forward VRS support.

The Xe HPG architecture is being pushed by Intel as the company's first high-performance gaming discrete graphics architecture. The company earlier released entry-level dGPUs based on the same Xe LP architecture as the Gen12 iGPU found in its "Tiger Lake" processors. The presence of VRS and Mesh Shader support, along with foundational work Intel has done in the area of real-time raytracing, hints at the likelihood of Intel gunning for DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness for the Xe HPG.

MSI is proud to officially announce the Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING X TRIO graphics card, powered by the groundbreaking AMD RDNA2 gaming architecture. AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards provide new levels of performance, incredible visual fidelity and advanced features to power amazing 4K gaming experiences.

The AMD RDNA2 gaming architecture at the core of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Series is designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and efficiency. It features a breakthrough high-speed design and enhanced power efficiency, designed to deliver higher performance with lower power consumption, and a new cache hierarchy designed to minimize data movement, latency and power usage. In addition, support for DirectX 12 Ultimate provides gamers with a powerful blend of raytracing, compute and rasterized effects to elevate games to a new level of realism.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard manufacturer, has launched the ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT Phantom Gaming D 16G OC graphics card. The new graphics card is built upon the groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture and 7 nm process technology, and features 80 compute units, 5120 stream processors, hardware-accelerated raytracing, 16 GB 256-bit GDDR6 memory and an HDMI 2.1 video port. It also supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate API and the PCI Express 4.0 bus standard, and provides a host of additional features to deliver the ultimate 4K gaming experiences.

Not to be outdone in comparison to almost all other AAA game releases in recent times, Far Cry 6 has recently been delayed from its February 18th release to May 25th 2021. However, that extra time may come to serve the game nicely, in that it may allow for all the planned features to be integrated. As part of AMD's partner showcase, Ubisoft has revealed that Far Cry 6 will make extensive use of DirectX 12 Ultimate features, featuring raytracing, AMD's Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), Variable Rate Shading (VRS), as well as Hybrid SSR (Stochastic Screen Space Reflections).

Ubisoft's head of 3D programming Oleksandr Polishchuk had this to say: "We were very impressed with the latest AMD technologies and joined forces to bring FidelityFX CAS, DXR raytracing and Variable Rate Shading to Far Cry 6. We are working together to ensure a smooth 4K viewing experience. This requires a lot of bandwidth, memory, and a Radeon RX 6000 with Infinity Cache that can handle it easily while maintaining high FPS rates." Check out the AMD partner showcase video below.

AMD is launching their next-generation RX 6800 series of graphics cards on November 18th, these will be the first cards from AMD featuring the new RDNA 2 architecture. To coincide with the launch of RDNA 2 in consumer graphics cards AMD is launching a new tech demo titled "Hangar 21", the new demonstration will highlight the power of RDNA 2 with real-time raytracing effects enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate. The "Hangar 21" tech demo will be launching on November 19th and you can view a short trailer of the tech demo down below.

AMDComing November 19, the "Hangar 21" Technology Demo Video will let you see the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture in action, the foundation of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards that power the next generation of gaming with mind-blowing visuals featuring realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate.

The global leading motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, launched its AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards, including Taichi, Phantom Gaming, and the Challenger product series. From the high-end Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16G OC, the mid-level Radeon RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming D 16G OC and Radeon RX 6800 Phantom Gaming D 16G OC, to the mainstream Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro 16G OC, the complete product line gives users the most variety of choices.

ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards leverage 7 nm process technology and AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, and support the DirectX 12 Ultimate software standard and hardware-accelerated raytracing. The product line features 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6 memory, and also supports the latest PCI Express 4.0 bus standard. It adopts ASRock's custom "Striped Axial Fan" and Polychrome SYNC ARGB LEDs, with outstanding pre-overclocked GPU clock settings and rich additional features. The performance of ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards provide gamers with an excellent 4K gaming experience.

Godfall, the RPG looter-slasher that's being developed by Counterplay Games in close collaboration with AMD, will require 12 GB VRAM for maxed-out settings at 4K resolution. As part of AMD's partner videos the company announced when it revealed the RX 6000 series of graphics cards, Godfall is being built with DirectX 12 Ultimate and DXR in mind, and takes advantage of a number of rendering technologies that are part of the DXR 1.1 feature-set, alongside AMD's Fidelity FX technologies. Counterplay Games will make a 4X x 4X Ultra HD texture pack available for maxed-out settings - well within the 16 GB of VRAM AMD has settled on for its RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 graphics cards.

Godfall features Variable Rate Shading (VRS) for increased performance with no discernible loss of visual quality, as well as raytraced shadows (platform agnostic) and makes use of AMD's Fidelity FX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening. This technology has shown great results in improving both performance (it has been benchmarked as offering performance levels similar to that of DLSS 2.0 in Death Stranding, for instance, compared to a full 4K render) and image quality.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 is powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture. Built with enhanced RT Cores and Tensor Cores, new streaming multiprocessors, and high-speed G6 memory, it gives you the power you need to rip through the most demanding games at 1440p resolution. Combined with the next generation of design, cooling, and overclocking with EVGA Precision X1, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 Series creates a definition for ultimate performance.

The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs, the 2nd generation of RTX, features new RT Cores, Tensor Cores and streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. Powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture, which delivers increases of up to 1.9X performance-per-watt over the previous generation, the RTX 30 Series effortlessly powers graphics experiences at all resolutions, even up to 8K at the top end. The GeForce RTX 3090, 3080, and 3070 represent the greatest GPU generational leap in the history of NVIDIA.

After thoroughly appetizing us with its "Where Gaming Begins: Episode 1" event announcing the Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" processors that offer up to 19% IPC gains, in the second Episode, we see the company announcing its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" graphics cards based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture that introduce full DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness, including real-time raytracing hardware. In the run up to the RX 6000, NVIDIA is already reportedly preparing product-stack updates. In this liveblog, we uncover what has NVIDIA riled up, and whether AMD can pull off better pricing and availbility than the RTX 30-series.Update 15:59 UTC: It is time! Welcome to the Radeon RX 6000 Series live blog.Update 16:01 UTC: AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su takes centerstage, fresh off a good quarterly results announcement, and that big Xilinx acquisition announcement.

Possibly unsure of the GeForce RTX 3070 tackling AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series parts, NVIDIA is designing a new RTX 30-series SKU positioned between the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. This is not a 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070, but rather a new SKU based on the 8 nm "GA102" silicon, according to a reliable source with NVIDIA leaks, kopite7kimi. The SKU is based on the GA102 with the ASIC code "GA102-150-KD-A1." The silicon is configured with 7,424 CUDA cores across 58 streaming multiprocessors (29 TPCs), 232 tensor cores, 232 TMUs, 58 RT cores, and an unknown number of ROPs. According to kopite7kimi, the card is configured with a 320-bit wide memory interface, although it's not known if this is conventional GDDR6, like the RTX 3070 has, or faster GDDR6X, like that on the RTX 3080.

NVIDIA recently "cancelled" a future 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070, and 20 GB variant of the RTX 3080, which is possibly the company calibrating its response to the Radeon RX 6000 series. We theorize that doubling in memory amounts may not have hit the desired cost-performance targets; and the company probably believes the competitive outlook of the RTX 3080 10 GB is secure. This explains the need for a SKU with performance halfway between that of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. As for pricing, with the RTX 3070 positioned at $500 and the RTX 3080 at $700, the new SKU could be priced somewhere in between. AMD's RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs are expected to feature DirectX 12 Ultimate logo compliance, meaning that there is a level playing ground between AMD and NVIDIA in the performance segment.