NVIDIA released its first GeForce software suite since Windows 10 October 2018 went official. The new GeForce 416.16 WHQL drivers add full support for the new operating system, including WDDM 2.5, and DirectX Ray-Tracing (DXR), which are essential for NVIDIA RTX to work. The drivers also add SLI profiles for a large number of games, including "Battlefield V," "Basingstroke," "Divinity: Original Sin II," "Immortal: Unchained," "Jurassic World Evolution," "Phoenix Point," and "Seven: The Days Long Gone." 3DVision profiles are added for "The Elder Scrolls: Online."

A small number of bugs are also fixed with this release. "Pascal" GPUs running "Quake HD remix" no longer experience black square glitches. Temporal AA sharp drops in performance with GeForce GTX 1060 running "Rainbow 6: Siege" has been fixed. Driver errors on TITAN Xp when waking up from S4 sleep have been fixed. Lastly, an issue found with "Turing" GPUs not exposing Netflix 4K mode to displays connected over USB-C, has been fixed. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 416.16 WHQL

The change-log follows.

Microsoft began rolling out Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) through its regular update channels. The update introduces several improvements to the operating system's user interface, expand on its Timeline features that let you pick up your work where you left off, and comes with a boatload of under the hood performance improvements relevant to PC enthusiasts and gamers. These include the latest update to DirectX that adds DirectX Ray-tracing API features (DXR), the latest version of WDDM, and native HDR standards management settings via Display Settings. To get it, simply make Windows check for updates.The change-log follows.

A box listing update for 343 Industries' Halo 5: Guardians over the weekend may have spilled the beans on a planned release of the title for PC gamers. Via an updated box art posted on Amazon, the new Halo 5: Guardians changes the previous "Only on XBOX One" adage of games that could only be found on Microsoft's console - and nowhere else - to a much more interesting "XBOX One Console Exclusive". This particular wording has become prevalent ever since Microsoft introduced its "XBOX Play Anywhere" initiative, which sees copies of games being mirrored in both the PC and console platforms - much like it happened on Halo Wars 2.

If this were to happen, of course, we'd expect nothing less that a very well optimized port for the PC version of the game. Microsoft hasn't been saving expenses in gearing up their Play Anywhere titles up to the best features and performance metrics PC gaming has to offer, and with a Halo game, those efforts are sure to be doubled. The franchise still remains Microsoft's juggernaut and best representative of their overall brand identity, and Microsoft - and 343 Industries - wouldn't want to be missing an opportunity to prepare a whole new world of potential gamers and buyers of Halo: Infinite via a less than exquisite launch of Halo 5: guardians on PC. Until then, you can always just hop into the free Forge mode on Windows 10.

Microsoft at its IFA Berlin briefing named its next major update to Windows 10, dubbed October 2018 Update, bound for the date of its namesake. Technically Windows 10 version 1809, the operating system will introduce a few user-interface improvements such as Dark Mode, and a cloud-linked clipboard that lets you copy things between your various Windows devices linked to the same Microsoft account. Microsoft will also introduce improvements to Game Mode and add functionality to Game Bar, including some hardware monitoring features. This would also present Redmond with the opportunity to introduce a new version of Edge. Microsoft could sign off the release by late-September, and start distribution sometime in October.

The PC requirements for the latest, upcoming iteration of Forza Horizon (now in its fourth installment) have just been outed. Of course, you wouldn't expect these to be much different from those of Forza Motorsport 6. Forza Horizon 4, developed by Microsoft Games Studios' Playground Games, will launch on October 4th, and promises to take you to new heights in arcade racing.

Being a Games for Windows game, of course, means Windows 10 is part of the minimum requirements - specifically, version 15063.0 of the OS (the Creators Update released back in 2017). Catch up on the rest of the requirements after the break - but if you have an Intel i3-4170, or an NVIDIA GT 740/ AMD R7 250X, you're gold for the minimum.

NVIDIA debuted its R399 series of GeForce software, which could be its final sequence before GeForce RTX family of graphics cards are released to market, likely accompanied by a new series of GeForce software (likely R400 series?). Version 399.07 WHQL is "Game Ready" for "Battlefield V Open Beta," F1 2018, "Immortal: Unchained," Pro Evolution Soccer 2019, "Strange Brigade," and "Switchblade." The drivers also add SLI profiles for F1 2018 and "Immortal: Unchained."

GeForce 399.07 WHQL addresses a number of bugs, including blurry screen noticed on "Rainbow Six: Siege" with TAA dialed up to 100%; diagonal screen-tearing on notebooks with MSHybrid; incorrect OpenGL rendering context on GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1070; missing textures in "Doom" (2016) with the Vulkan renderer; random BSODs on Oculus VR software; stability issues with "LA Noire VR," and stuttering in some exotic configurations on "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4." A key bug with G-Sync stuttering on machines upgrading to Windows 10 1803 has also been fixed. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 399.07 WHQL Software

(Update: UL has come forward to clarify the way they're integrating Raytracing into their benchmarking suite. You can read the follow-up article here.)

UL (who acquired and is in the process of changing 3D Mark's image to that of its own) has revealed that the new, raytracing-supporting version of their Time Spy high performance and high quality benchmark will be arriving by the end of September.

The new version of the benchmark will be released around the launch of Microsoft's next version of its Windows 10 Operating System, codenamed Redstone 5, and thus will fall in some time after NVIDIA's RTX 20-series launch on September 20th. Here's hoping it will be available in time for comparative reviews on NVIDIA's new family of products, and that some light can be shed on the new series' framerates delivery, and not just their GigaRays/sec capabilities.

We stopped by Microsoft's booth at Gamescom 2018 in Koln, Germany, to see what the behemoth company was pushing for its Xbox family of products - and, of course, Windows 10. However, the company's presence lacked most of its heavy-hitters - Halo was absent, Gears of War was as well. In fact, Microsoft's presence at this years' Gamescom was limited to Forza Horizon 4 and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, when it comes to in-house exclusives. Though that McLaren does look great over there, doesn't it? Oh my.

Bootcamp was an instant hit with MacBook users, as it allowed them to dual-boot between MacOS and Windows, giving them access to applications that don't have MacOS versions. Google's Chromebook is a similar walled-garden to Apple Mac, with the company maintaining tight control over the hardware and OS. A new software modeled along Bootcamp, cheekily named Campfire, could introduce dual-booting on Chromebooks, allowing you to switch between ChromeOS and Windows 10.

Campfire first surfaced on the Chromium Git as a mysterious new project pointing to an "alt OS mode" for ChromeOS. XDA Developers confirms that Campfire will be introduced by Google for its entire userbase, and not just something that you optionally install. You also don't need to enable Developer Mode to use it. For now, a wide range of Chromebooks appear to be Campfire-ready. Google will focus on making it as easy as possible to install Windows 10. Although not limited by other hardware specs, Campfire could eat up at least 30 GB of storage to meet Windows 10 requirements and leave a reasonable amount of user-space. You should only try it out on Chromebooks with 60 GB (or higher) storage.

The "Night Light" toggle introduced with Windows 10 was an instant hit with users staying up long hours on the PC. When flicked, DWM applies a shader that filters out blue light, and adjusts the color temperature accordingly at a software-level, so even people without monitors that do this can have some degree of protection from the harshness of high color temperature and blue light. The same demographic of people are also looking for an instant toggle that changes Windows to a dark theme. Ask they did, and Microsoft responded in kind, with the Preview Build 17733.

The dark mode can be toggled in the Notifications Center menu of Windows 10. When flicked, all of the areas in Explorer that are normally white, or some brighter shade of gray, turn to black, or a darker shade. Such a UI from Microsoft dates back to the 1990s with its Encarta suite. You can use the dark theme even now, but you'd have to enable it via Windows Settings. It would now take three clicks to bring up the Notifications Center, and toggle both dark mode and night light.

NVIDIA today released a small, yet seemingly important enough update to their GeForce driver suite. Shipping under the 398.86 beta version, the new graphics driver specifically addresses an issue whereas Windowed G-Sync mode might stutter after upgrading to Windows 10 April 2018 Update. There's no other declared features in the release notes, so if you've been experiencing this issue, just make the jump. You can grab the drivers below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.86 Beta

Panasonic today announced it is doubling the RAM and storage in the latest version of its popular Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 tablet and upgrading to the latest 7th generation Intel Core i5 processor. The addition of an optional high resolution thermal camera, combined with the powerful fully rugged Panasonic tablet and its versatile configurable set-up also makes it ideal for an even wider range of business sectors and applications.

The 5th generation of the fully rugged Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 delivers more performance for less power with an upgraded Intel Core i5-7300U vPro processor. It has also doubled the RAM to 8GB and storage to 256GB SSD.

Microsoft is giving Notepad, the humble plaintext editor, its first major update in decades. The update will be shipping in the next major update to Windows 10, currently referred to as Redstone 5. To begin with, Notepad is getting an under-the-hood performance boost that will let it work with large text files more responsively. More functionality is added to the status bar (which stays hidden by default). The status bar now allows you to zoom in and out of text (this doesn't change font size, only its display). To zoom in/out, hold down ctrl, and turn the scroll wheel up or down. The status bar also displays cursor position in lines and columns, and character encoding. Notepad will also, at long last, receive support for *nix and Mac line endings. Lastly, ctrl+backspace (deleting a previous word instead of a character) will finally be supported.

One nifty new feature currently being deployed to Windows 10 Fast Ring users is the ability to see exactly how much power a given process is consuming in your system's hardware (CPU, GPU & Disk). The new feature, which appears as two additional Task Manager tabs, showcases the instantaneous power usage of a given process, but also features a trend calculator that covers a two-minute interval. This should be pretty handy, if the measurement process is close enough to the real power consumption. This could even be used as another flag for cryptomining malware or scripts in a given webpage. You can check the source for the additional updates that have been brought to build 17704 of the Windows Insider Program.

While not much happened during June's Microsoft Patch Day, the company is now pushing out updates for earlier builds of Windows 10, namely for the Anniversary Update (1607), Creators Update (1703), Fall Creators Update 1709). There is no updates for the latest Windows 10 April 2018 Update (1803).The change logs are below. You will receive those updates via Windows Update.

343 Industries and Microsoft, at its E3 press conference, opened up hostilities with a reveal trailer for the next installment in the Halo series. Presented as Halo Infinite, the new Halo game will mark the first time a mainline Halo experience is launched in both the XBOX platform and Windows PCs, and thus marks a new era, with even greater market penetration, for the critic and user-acclaimed series.

The reveal trailer is more of a technical showcase rather than a full-blown reveal trailer for the game; the idea was to showcase the new Slipspace Engine. This new engine marks the second one to have ever been used in the mainline Halo series (not counting the Saber engine used in the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary by Saber Interactive, or the engines used for Halo Wars). The Halo series has been using virtually the same game engine since the series' inception with Halo: Combat Evolved back in 2001 (heavily modified each year, of course). The new Slipspace Engine is a chance to build new tools which will apparently lead to an open-world setting - that's what some publications are expecting. Honestly, I would expect something more akin to hub locations in a galaxy-spanning conflict, in an approach similar to Destiny and Destiny 2, with quasi-open world settings at each one. Side-quests are likely to be introduced, likely in a way similar to what Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare delivered (but hoepfully beatter and more meaningful in their introduction). For now, this is all speculation, though, so take it with a bucketload of salt.

AMD today rolled out Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.2 Beta drivers. This includes drivers for 32-bit Windows 10 and Windows 7. While the drivers don't coincide with any AAA game launches; they pack a number of bug fixes. To begin with, they fix a system hang noticed on "Sea of Thieves" after the splash-screen. A "white screen" that was noticed in "The Crew" in daylight maps, is now fixed. Shader Cache failing to enable on some games, has now been fixed. Certain FreeSync displays putting out a blank screen when FreeSync is enabled in the middle of a game, is fixed. Texture issues with zombie models in "Arizona Sunshine" is fixed. "Warhammer: Vermintide 2" experiencing an application hang upon changing resolution, has also been fixed.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.2 Beta

AMD today released Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL drivers. These are the first WHQL-certified drivers from the company for Windows 10 April 2018 Update, complying with WDDM 2.4, and support not just AMD Radeon discrete GPUs, but also Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs with integrated Radeon Vega graphics. The drivers support Microsoft PlayReady 3.0 DRM on "Polaris" GPUs.

Besides these features, Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL comes with optimization for "Ancestors Legacy," with up to 6 percent higher frame-rates at 1080p, measured with an RX Vega 56, and up to 13 percent higher frame rates on an RX 580 (8 GB) at 1080p. The update fixes HBCC not resetting to default value when "Restore Factory Defaults" option is used in Radeon Settings. It also addresses ReLive streaming to Facebook intermittently failing; Netflix users experiencing display corruption on "Polaris" multi-GPU systems, abnormally high game load times in "Destiny 2," and fixes for screen tearing observed on FreeSync displays with performance metrics enabled.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL

The change-log follows.

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, is excited to present a more capable and energy-sipping ZBOX Mini PC - the ZBOX CI329 nano. Powered by an Intel Gemini Lake processor with an integrated Intel UHD Graphics hardware, this latest model can deliver performance to power through everyday tasks such as web browsing, checking e-mail, streaming music or videos, and light productivity related tasks in perfect silence.

The ZBOX CI329 nano is powered by an energy-sipping, quad-core Intel N4100 processor which offers great power efficiency without compromising computing power, consuming up to 13 Watts of power under heavy loads, and sipping just 6 Watts of power at idle. Along with low power consumption, the new ZBOX Mini PC comes with a full range of connectivity including 5 USB ports, an SDXC card reader, Headphone and Mic jacks, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac wireless, and Bluetooth 5.0 for hassle-free expansion or connectivity to fulfill everyday computing needs.

TDK Corporation announces the sequential launch of the embedded SD ESRD4 series, the embedded SSD ESS1B series and the M.2 SSD Type 2280-D5-B-M SNS1B series. With the progress of IoT, the demand for micro storage for edge data is rapidly expanding. In particular, eMMC, which can be mounted on a surface, was expected to be potent, but the trend is shifting from eMMC to UFS, which is associated with the larger capacity of smartphones.

On the other hand, a reliable and appropriate storage capacity is required for I-IoT that usually uses a small capacity. TDK's embedded SD ESRD4 series is a SD card, equipped with a highly durable SLC/pSLC NAND flash that can be implemented on boards. It covers a wide range of capacities from 1GB to 32GB, suitable for storing a lightweight system such as Linux and RTOS.

TechPowerUp today released GPU-Z v2.9.0, the latest version of the graphics sub-system information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility no enthusiast can leave home without. Version 2.9.0 fixes some of the bugs encountered with Windows 10 April 2018 Update, with support for new WDDM 2.4 drivers. Support is also added for NVIDIA Tesla V100, and NVIDIA GPUs in TCC mode (eg: Tesla and Quadro families). Also added is support for "Haswell" GT1 variant (found on certain Celeron SKUs), and more AMD "Bristol Ridge" APU graphics variants.

At AMD's request, we disabled "Vega" SoC clock and hot-spot sensors by default. You can manually enable them any time in the settings. For enthusiasts who have GPU-Z launched at start-up (as a Scheduled Task), Windows will no longer nag with the "this file was downloaded from the Internet" dialog every time. PerfCap reason for Tesla GPUs in TCC mode has been fixed to "none." Detection of various AMD "Carrizo," "Bristol Ridge" and "Stoney Ridge" GPUs were fixed. The overall drawing code for the sensor graphs is improved. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.9.0

The Change-log follows.

ASUS has silently began rolling out motherboard BIOS updates for its Intel 9-series chipset motherboards, which provide hardening against "Meltdown" and "Spectre" vulnerabilities, through a CPU microcode update. Intel, if you'll recall, released microcode updates for "Haswell" and "Broadwell" processors this March, but you were at the mercy of your motherboard manufacturer to pass them on to you. The BIOS updates pack the latest version 24 microcode for 4th generation "Haswell" and 5th generation "Broadwell" processors in the LGA1150 package.

A small catch here, is that the BIOS updates are marked "beta" by ASUS, because the understanding is that all 9-series motherboards sold through 2014-15 are EOL, and have probably lapsed warranty coverage, so the company is limiting its liabilities in case BIOS updates fail, or if the platform still ends up "vulnerable" somehow. The latest version of InSpectre confirms that the latest BIOS for the Z97-A, one of the more popular motherboards by ASUS based on the Z97 Express chipset, passes hardening against Meltdown and Spectre, coupled with Windows 10 April 2018 Update. You should find the latest BIOS updates in the "Support" tab of the product page of your motherboard on ASUS website. Here's hoping other motherboard manufacturers love their customers as much.

Microsoft began rolling out Windows 10 April 2018 Update. This isn't an ordinary "patch Tuesday" update, but a major update akin to "Fall Creators Update," which updates the build of the operating system to 1803. With it, Microsoft is introducing four major features to Windows 10 - Timeline, Focus Assist, Dictation, and a new and improved Edge web-browser. Timeline is essentially a time-linked file manager that organizes your files (and versions of them), e-mails, web-browser favorites, and search results, by time, so you can go back up to 30 days in time to find your stuff.

Focus Assist is a feature that lets you keep your focus on work (or productive tasks), and prevents you from being sucked into endless scrolling through social-media or other trivial activity, when you're supposed to be working. You set it to turn on in specific times of the day and days of the week, or even arbitrarily, and it keeps giving you visual or auditory reminders that pull you away from your trivial activity. The third major feature is Dictation, which is natural voice input as somewhat grammatically correct text. Microsoft made improvements to Edge that include the ability to mute tabs, maximize Reading Mode or PDFs into full-screen, secure payment options storage, and in-built Grammar Tools besides spell-checkers, so you no longer need to pay for services such as Grammarly.

(UPDATE: This latest driver version apparently also adds support for 4K Netflix content on computers powered by AMD's graphics cards. This solution is akin to NVIDIA's, and has some specific hoops that users must go through in order to actually get Netflix's 4K content to render properly: the new PlayReady 3.0 DRM technology that's Microsoft's master plan to thwart piracy requires Microsoft Edge as a browser, a connection to the monitor via the HDCP 2.2 protocol, an existing h.265 decoder, and a Netflix Premium subscription.)

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.4.1 Beta adds initial support for the April 2018 update of Windows 10 (build 1803), (formerly referred to as "Spring Creators Update"). The drivers also fix issues with a number of games, such as water textures not appearing correctly in "World of Final Fantasy;" an application hang noticed on game loading screens of "Stellaris," display corruption noticed on "Call of Duty: WWII" on some Radeon RX 400 series graphics cards, and flickering noticed in "Sea of Thieves." Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.4.1

The change-log follows.

NVIDIA today releases GeForce 397.31 WHQL drivers. The drivers see NVIDIA discontinue regular support for 32-bit versions of Windows. It also sheds support for GPUs based on NVIDIA "Fermi" GPU architecture (GeForce 400 series and 500 series). The drivers also add first official support for NVIDIA RTX real-time ray-tracing technology. To use it, you'll need a GPU based on NVIDIA's next-generation "Volta" architecture (such as the $3,000 TITAN V), the latest major version of Windows 10, and Microsoft DXR developer package. The drivers also add support for Vulkan 1.1 API. Besides the above three, GeForce 397.31 WHQL is game-ready for "BattleTech" and "FrostPunk." Grab it from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.31 WHQL