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AMD has just released a new driver for its Radeon graphics cards, and the major highlight is up to 13% better frame rates with Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

That’s a pretty impressive jump in terms of performance, and the figure was arrived at by AMD with its own internal testing using a Radeon RX 5700 (with an Intel Core i7 9700K CPU, interestingly), with an average of three tests producing 55.6 frames per second using the previous driver.

That increased to 62.7 fps – edging over the magic 60 fps mark – when AMD switched to the latest version 19.7.3 of the Radeon Adrenalin driver. Naturally, depending on your exact GPU and the rest of the components in your PC, your mileage may vary.

Speaking of the RX 5700, this GPU and its sibling XT version are now supported in the Radeon GPU Profiler with this latest driver.

LoL and lag

There were also a load of bug fixes as to be expected, which include a solution for League of Legends failing to work on Windows 7 PCs with Radeon RX 5700 cards, and also bouts of stuttering when first starting Fortnite with these new Navi GPUs.

Also, Radeon Anti-Lag (which is designed to improve the response time of your gaming peripherals) was causing ‘slight performance drops’ in some games, and this gremlin has thankfully been banished.

A couple of major issues remain, though, with one of them again pertaining to the RX 5700 range, whereby gamers might (ironically) see stuttering with Radeon FreeSync on a 240Hz refresh rate monitor. It’s not unusual for there to be problems with new GPUs, of course, as various quirks get ironed out post-launch.

Windows 10 gamers should also note that if they are planning on upgrading to the latest May 2019 Update, some PC configurations are experiencing corruption of green colors with the Radeon Adrenalin software, so that’s something to be wary of.

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Historically, Apple Maps has never enjoyed the same level of popularity as its main competitor, Google Maps.

However, the San Cupertino-based company has been catching up fast in recent months, and if a new patent by the tech giant is anything to go by, the integration of AR (Augmented Reality) into the navigation app could help it finally eclipse its biggest rival.

According to Cult Of Mac, Apple has applied for a patent titled ‘Navigation Using Augmented Reality’, which outlines changes to Apple Maps that would “overlay route information onto live views of the road ahead of the car”. 

This would require the driver’s iPhone to be mounted on the car’s dashboard, with the camera pointed at the road ahead. 

The driver would then see real-time views of their route overlaid with navigational information – for example, speed limits, directions, and street names. 

(Image credit: Apple)

Easier navigation

Why would this be useful? Well, navigation apps tend to display an illustrated top-down view of the road ahead, which Apple thinks can be difficult for drivers to square with the real world in front of them. 

The description of the patent explains that, “by superimposing the navigational layer over the captured images, the user can clearly and easily understand which lane to be positioned in without having to decipher how general symbols correlate with the real world.”

As Cult Of Mac suggests, this feature could work with augmented-reality glasses, although this technology hasn’t exactly taken off, and there are potential safety concerns associated with drivers having their fields of vision blocked by computer-generated symbols. 

As with any patent, there’s no guarantee that AR navigation will ever come to Apple Maps – but if it does, it could give the app a much-needed boost ahead of its Google-made rival. 

Via Cult Of Mac

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Historically, Apple Maps has never enjoyed the same level of popularity as its main competitor, Google Maps – but if a new patent by the tech giant is anything to go by, the integration of AR (Augmented Reality) into the navigation app could change everything. 

According to Cult Of Mac, Apple has applied for a patent titled ‘Navigation Using Augmented Reality’, which outlines changes to Apple Maps that would “overlay route information onto live views of the road ahead of the car”. 

This would require the driver’s iPhone to be mounted on the car’s dashboard, with the camera pointed at the road ahead. 

The driver would then see real-time views of their route overlaid with navigational information – for example, speed limits, directions, and street names. 

(Image credit: Apple)

Easier navigation

Why would this be useful? Well, navigation apps tend to display an illustrated top-down view of the road ahead, which Apple thinks can be difficult for drivers to square with the real world in front of them. 

The description of the patent explains that, “by superimposing the navigational layer over the captured images, the user can clearly and easily understand which lane to be positioned in without having to decipher how general symbols correlate with the real world.”

As Cult Of Mac suggests, this feature could work with augmented-reality glasses, although this technology hasn’t exactly taken off, and there are potential safety concerns associated with drivers having their fields of vision blocked by computer-generated symbols. 

As with any patent, there’s no guarantee that AR navigation will ever come to Apple Maps – but if it does, it could give the app a much-needed boost ahead of its Google-made rival. 

Via Cult Of Mac

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After being announced alongside the Honor 20 in May, the Honor 20 Pro is finally set to be released around the world.

August 2 is the big day that you’ll be able to buy the phone in the UK, but there’s currently no word on whether it will launch in the US or Australia.

It’s unlikely to be available in the US considering the company’s previous track record in the country, and the fact its parent company Huawei is currently going through political turmoil there.

The phone is first launching in Russia, but the UK will soon follow, with other countries such as France, Italy, Spain and the UAE set for an August 2 launch as well. 

Other countries where the phone is set to be available on that date include Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland, Malaysia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

We’ve yet to learn how much the Honor 20 Pro is set to cost in the UK, but we’re expecting that’s something we’ll learn about very soon.

We’ve extensively used the Honor 20 Pro and our hands on review said it “looks, feels and runs like a premium smartphone, but without the polish or the hype – and, most importantly, without the price tag”.

We also said “it’s a slick and powerful mid-range smartphone that will give its competitors a run for their money.”

Via Phone Arena

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While the UK was beaten by many other European countries in the race to 5G, one bonus for UK citizens is that there are plenty of 5G-ready European cities to journey to – especially now that Vodafone has kicked off 5G roaming in over 50 cities across the continent.

As of July 26, people who use Vodafone’s 5G network can now also go for data roaming in cities across the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, letting you use all your high-speed internet while enjoying the Mediterranean sun or sipping a lovely European beer.

Vodafone hasn’t released the full list of 5G roaming cities yet, but we know it’ll include Munich, Madrid and Rome. It’s also likely that, as Europe’s 5G networks expand further, more cities and countries will gear up for 5G roaming.

According to Vodafone, the price for 5G roaming is exactly the same as it is for using 5G at home – which is to say, the same as 4G.

The two 5G phones available on Vodafone right now are the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G, so these are the handsets you’ll be able to use on your 5G holiday, but we expect more to launch soon enough.

Right now, Vodafone is the only UK telecoms company offering 5G roaming. We don’t expect this advantage to last for long, as the 5G race is a tight one – so you can expect to see other providers offering it before long.

If the ability to 5G roam is enough to entice you to the 5G way of living, or just Vodafone in general, check out our Vodafone deals page for the best savings on new smartphones.

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Since Apple introduced the Touch Bar, a slim OLED panel that sits above the keyboard, in its 2016 refresh of the MacBook Pro, people have been divided over how useful the feature actually is. Now, however, a developer has found a genuinely beneficial use for it – but only if you’re running Windows 10.

A developer on GitHub has proved that it’s possible to display the Windows 10 taskbar – which holds the icons and shortcuts for your applications – on the Touch Bar, which would make it easy to open up and switch between Windows apps, and could mean that you don’t need to show the taskbar on the main display, giving users more desktop space.

It’s certainly a clever hack, and it shows a lot of potential for running Windows 10 on a MacBook Pro. It involves using Microsoft’s USB Common Class Generic Parent Driver (USBCCGP) and a modification to the Windows Registry, along with a driver to support FrameBuffer transfer.

Driving results

According to the developer, this custom-made driver allows the taskbar to appear on the Touch Bar, and it can respond to touches.

The project is still in early development, so it’s not available for people to try themselves, but the results are promising – and it shows there are people out there coming up with novel ways to make use of the Touch Bar.

Of course, if this project does see the light of day, it won’t be officially supported by Apple, and it will only work if you run Windows 10 on a MacBook Pro. 

There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to run Microsoft’s operating system on Apple’s hardware, and this new feature could make using that combination even better in the future.

Via WindowsLatest

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Windows 10 users looking to move to the latest May 2019 Update – perhaps for security reasons, as we’ve recently seen – should be aware that the upgrade is being blocked for certain older Intel drivers.

As Microsoft explains, there are compatibility issues with certain Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers – between versions 15.1.0.1002 and 15.5.2.1053 – and the May 2019 Update. So if you’re running those versions of the Intel drivers, you won’t be able to install the latter.

If you attempt to upgrade, you’ll receive a message informing you that: “The inbox storage driver iastora.sys doesn’t work on these systems and causes stability problems on Windows.”

These drivers take care of various storage configuration tasks as you might imagine, and specifically Intel Optane memory and the maintenance of various RAID arrays (RAID 0/1/5/10).

Update to get the update

To remedy the problem, you obviously need to update your Intel drivers to at least version 15.5.2.1054 (although the recommended version is a later build: 15.9.6.1044). Of course, you really should update all your drivers as a matter of routine, anyway (and be running the latest Optane firmware if you have one of Intel’s memory modules in your PC).

The best way to update is via your hardware manufacturer – check its website – but failing that, as sometimes third-party vendors aren’t on the ball, you can get the relevant RST drivers directly from Intel here.

Via Windows Latest

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