Ronald.phillips

As 2022 comes to a close, I reflect back over the past year, and the previous years that have gone before. I know we find it fascinating to hear "experts" make predictions for the future, but I tend to believe that there's more value in reflecting on and learning from the past.

Years ago, I remember hearing about something in legal circles referred to as "the CSI effect". In short, the unrealistic portrayal of "forensics" on TV shows had influenced public opinion. People would watch an hour-long crime drama TV show and what they saw set the expectation in their minds of "forensics" should be, and this unrealistic expectation made it difficult for prosecutors to convince some juries of their evidence.

Over the holiday season, a "bomb cyclone" across the US combined with the numbers of folks wanting to travel to cause travel delays with the airlines, as one might expect. Planes needed to be deiced, but at some locations, travel was simply impossible. However, one airline in particular experienced heavier than usual delays and cancellations, to the point where the Transportation Secretary took notice. For several days, the evening national news covered this story, focusing in on the failures of the airline, and how stranded passengers were standing in long lines just to seek assistance from the airline's customer service. As each day went by and media reports highlighted how the cascading failures were snowballing and impacting travelers, all of this served to create an sense of negativity toward the airline management. Everyone I spoke with over the holidays had the same negative perspective of the airline's management.

On the morning of 28 Dec 2022, I saw the following post on LinkedIn:

Erin's message served as a stark reminder that there's often more to the story, that regardless of what we see being reported in the media, there are often stories that are not covered and reported, and that do not make it into the public eye. News outlets have a limited amount of time to cover a hand-picked menu of events of the day, so we have to be conscious of "collection bias", and if what we're seeing and hearing is playing into a narrative that we assume is correct.

The point here is to remain grounded, and as we roll over into the New Year, this is a good opportunity to make a resolution to remain grounded, and to seek out accountability partners and mentors to help us remain grounded. Don't be so focused on the negative aspects of an event that we loose sight of the positive things that happen, and that the folks who make those positive things happen need our support more than someone we believe is to blame needs our anger. 

If you were watching television between 2001 and 2011, at some point you probably either watched or at least stumbled across "Smallville." The episodic adventures of a young Clark Kent, who was destined to become Superman, "Smallville" was a teen soap opera/monster-of-the-week TV ratings bonanza for The WB (which eventually became The CW), and for a whole decade, it was one of the network's signature shows.

Unlike previous Superman live-action shows, however, "Smallville" eventually went out of its way to incorporate other heroes and villains from the comics, creating its own sprawling universe. Over the course of the series familiar costumed crime fighters like Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Dr. Fate, and Hawkman — to name a few — teamed up with the fledgling superhero.

And yet over the course of the show, despite a series of amusing references and teases, "Smallville" never introduced Bruce Wayne, the Batman, in the series. And that's pretty danged funny since "Smallville" actually started out as a backdoor pilot pitch for a "Bruce Wayne" TV show.

Before Batman Begins Began

Superhero movies were just starting to boom in the early 2000s, and even though Batman was one of the most famous characters in the world, "Batman & Robin" had effectively killed off the film franchise. The time would soon come for a reboot with Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins," which rewrote the character's origin story and focused on his first attempts to fight crime dressed up as a giant Chiroptera.

But years before "Batman Begins" hit theaters, screenwriter Tim McCanlies — who wrote the screenplay for Brad Bird's animated classic, "The Iron Giant" — was pitching a similar idea for a TV series called "Bruce Wayne."

"There's a lot of similarities [to 'Batman Begins']," Tim McCanlies told Mandatory. "We were sort of drawing on some of the same subject matter but the comics usually were panel three, Bruce as a kid is over his dead parents. Then there's a shot of him mixing test tubes in college, and then he's in the costume."

"So I wanted to explore that whole five or six-year thing and it became a big deal at Warner Brothers because they kept wanting to get movies mounted at the time. Darren Aronofsky was going to try to do 'Batman: Year One.'" Unfortunately for McCanlies, Warner Bros. was so committed to bringing Batman back to the big screen that a live-action TV series was a very tough sell, even though the screenwriter says networks were interested. "Suddenly it came down to Alan Horn," McCanlies recalled. "Lorenzo DiBonaventura was the vice president of Warners and I had done five things with him including 'Iron Giant.' He was sort of my guy over there and yet he really screwed up my TV thing saying, 'No, it's a features thing.' I still give him s*** over that."

When Bruce Met Clark...

According to Tim McCanlies, it was his own pitch for the "Bruce Wayne" television series that inspired the creation of "Smallville," even though "Bruce Wayne" itself never got made."'Smallville" sort of came as a result of my thing," McCanlies said. "'Smallville' was sort of a long story and I'm under a little bit of a nondisclosure agreement with Warner Brothers because of various things. 'Smallville' started out as a backdoor pilot in the 'Bruce Wayne' bible."

For anyone unfamiliar, a series bible is a compendium of characters, storylines, and pitches for future episodes of a series. The bible for "Smallville," for example, would likely have had biographies for Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, and all the other major supporting characters, as well as concepts for ongoing storylines, standalone episodes, supervillains, and superhero team-ups. According to McCanlies, his pitch bible included "an episode called 'Smallville' where a young Clark Kent comes to Gotham City. It's like a newspaper convention and Bruce tries to get rid of him and lose him and he can't. Everywhere he turns, Clark's right there."

"The idea was always to do a 'Smallville' pilot," McCanlies explained.

Thinking 'Small'

Unfortunately, the plans for Tim McCanlies' versions of both the Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent TV shows fell apart, because of old-fashioned creative differences. "Warner Brothers and I disagreed on what direction it should go and so they paid me off, handsomely, and went off and did their own," McCanlies said. We may never know what Tim McCanlies would have done with the TV series "Smallville," but at the very least he told us what he wouldn't have done.

"I guess I can say this much. I told them what 'Smallville' should not be is a 'Dawson's Creek' esque 23-year-old underwear models preening and pretending to be high school sophomores and who's sleeping with whom. And they said, 'That's exactly what we want to do.'" And that's exactly what they did. But there was one idea McCanlies had that did, in a roundabout way, wind up in "Smallville," a.k.a. the Superman series that didn't show Clark Kent becoming Superman until the very last episode. "They kept saying, 'No, you can't have Batman,'" McCanlies recalled. "I kept saying, 'Well, I'm not doing Batman. I'm doing Bruce Wayne. You don't see the costume until the last show of the seventh season.'"

Hey ... at least we eventually got "Gotham," right?

Read this next: Joker's Wild: Ranking The Cinematic Versions Of The Clown Prince Of Crime

The post The Idea For Smallville Came From A Rejected Batman Prequel Pitch From Tim McCanlies appeared first on /Film.

Exactly one year ago today, 2021 got in one last sucker punch with the death of Betty White. Now, 2022 has wrapped up with a heavy blow of its own: trailblazing news anchor and interviewer Barbara Walters has died at the age of 93.

Walters' career spanned more than half a century, during which time she hosted the "Today" show, "ABC Evening News," and "20/20" before creating and hosting her daytime talk show, "The View." Walters also made many appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," where she was played by various members of the comedy show's cast over the years. Gilda Radner debuted the character of "Baba Wawa" in 1975, spoofing Walters' slight speech impediment that caused her to struggle with the letter "R." Walters later told the New York Daily News that she "wasn't so thrilled" with the parody at first. But one night, after she found her young daughter Jacqueline watching a Baba Wawa sketch and reprimanded her, Jacqueline retorted, "Oh, mommy, where's your sense of humor?"

Thanks in part to that admonishment, Walters' feelings about Baba Wawa softened. "Gilda was so wonderful — the sketch immortalized me," she told the NY Daily News in hindsight, also revealing that "years later, when Gilda died, I sent her husband [actor Gene Wilder] a sympathy note and signed it 'Barbara Wawa.'"

Other "SNL" comics who offered their own impressions of Walters include Cheri Oteri and Rachel Dratch (who reprised the role in "30 Rock," via a tongue-twisting interview about a fictional movie called "The Rural Juror"). And in 2014, Walters herself joined the "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update desk to celebrate her retirement.

'Develop A Signature Voice That No One Will Forget'

Sharing the Weekend Update desk with Cecily Strong, Walters gets in a few stern comments about her prior depictions on "Saturday Night Live," before indulging in some humor at her own expense. Walters was often criticized for throwing softball questions at her interview subjects, most notoriously asking Katherine Hepburn in a 1981 interview, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" 

Like many notorious quotes, this one has been heavily paraphrased and taken out of context. In the original interview, it was Hepburn who said she felt like a strong tree in her old age, to which Walters responded with the follow-up question, "What kind of tree are you?" (Hepburn's answer: an oak tree). Walters addressed the misquote in a 2004 "20/20" special, which today demonstrates an eerie bit of forethought. "At my funeral, or perhaps in my obituary, it may mention that I once asked Katherine Hepburn what kind of a tree she wanted to be. Well, that's not exactly what happened," Walters said, playing the original clip as proof. "I didn't ask her, she brought it up! What was I to do?"

Frankly, it's impossible to get through 50 years on camera without asking a silly question or two (I have personally asked many silly questions in a mere fraction of that time). But when it comes to the matter of Katherine Hepburn and the tree, consider the record corrected, Barbara Wawa.

Read this next: Actors Who Died In 2021

The post Barbara Walters Celebrated Her Retirement With a Heartwarming SNL Weekend Update Appearance appeared first on /Film.

The NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti is going to be launching on the 5th for an MSRP of $799 (which is going to be loosely interpreted by the AICs considering the company is not preparing a Founder's Edition for this and only custom models will hit the market). Videocardz has done it again and leaked the official performance figures of the RTX 4070 Ti - although we already had an exceptionally good idea from NVIDIA's official slides of the same card when it was launched as the RTX 4080 12 GB.

RTX 4070 Ti scores 11258 points in TimeSpy Extreme (4K) and 13698 points in FireStrike Ultra (4K)

Long story short, the RTX 4070 Ti is roughly as fast as the older generation NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti. In gaming, the RTX 4070 Ti is just shy of the RTX 3090 Ti and in rendering applications such as Octanebench, it is actually slightly faster. The official MSRP of the card is $799, which is $1200 less than the $1999 MSRP of the RTX 3090 Ti.

While it might be similar in performance, it is worth noting that the RTX 3090 Ti did have 24 GB of VRAM while the RTX 4070 Ti only has 12 GB of VRAM. The full breakdown of the scores and their relative positions courtesy of Videocardz is given below:

Data courtesy of Videocardz.com	TimeSpy Extreme (4K)	FireStrike Ultra (4K)
GeForce RTX 4090	19484	24938
Radeon RX 7900 XTX	14883	19465
GeForce RTX 4080	14022	17316
Radeon RX 7900 XT	12707	17288
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	11312	13987
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	11258	13698
Radeon RX 6950 XT	10694	15218
GeForce RTX 3090	10288	12612
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	10037	12451
Radeon RX 6900 XT	10012	14362
Radeon RX 6800 XT	9262	12978
GeForce RTX 3080	8894	10843
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	7402	9339
GeForce RTX 3070	6789	8560
Radeon RX 6750 XT	6320	9001

The NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti will have 7680 CUDA cores clocked at 2.61 GHz and powered by 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. This means you are looking at a theoratical peak FP32 throughput of 40.01 TFLOPs. Interestingly however, these official benchmarks show that the RTX 4070 Ti will officially be slightly less powerful than the Radeon RX 7900 XT - which is going to have an MSRP of $899. So this is NVIDIA undercutting the Radeon competitor by pricing it to appeal to what is essentially the new mainstream market segment.

GPU	FP32 TFLOPs	MSRP	TFLOPs/$	Value (%)
GeForce RTX 4090	82.59	1599	0.05165	100.0%
GeForce RTX 4080	48.74	1199	0.04065	78.7%
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	40.09	799	0.05017	97%

While the RTX 4090 sold like hot cakes considering the value proposition it was giving on a TFLOPs/$ basis, the RTX 4080 did not do well at all considering the bad price point. The RTX 4070 Ti is much much closer to the value proposition that the RTX 4090 made and should sell much better as well. This might not be the pricing that gamers were hoping for but it is certainly much better pricing than we have seen in the market for years and should make way for NVIDIA and AMD to start reconnecting with their core audience - gamers.

The post NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti Official Benchmarks Leak Out – As Fast As The RTX 3090 Ti But 40% Of The MSRP by Usman Pirzada appeared first on Wccftech.

Most people know Clint Eastwood became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood by making Spaghetti Westerns in Spain and Italy with filmmaker Sergio Leone. Most of these people probably figure Eastwood's Man with No Name was a man of few words at the behest of the director, due likely to a language barrier of some sort. This, however, was not the case.

Though Leone is no longer around to refute this, Eastwood holds that his laconic Man with No Name character featured in "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" would've been a good deal more loquacious had Leone stuck to the screenplay he wrote with Victor Andrés Catena and Jaime Comas. Given that Eastwood's career going forward would play off this stolid persona, you can't help but wonder if portraying a chattier gunfighter would've landed as palpably with American audiences. In any event, while Eastwood's instincts proved impeccable, Leone didn't give up on his scripted vision of the character without a fight.

Eastwood's assertion is especially fascinating when you consider that Leone's film was a fairly direct remake of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo," which was itself an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's crime novel "Red Harvest" (though, despite clear plot similarities, the filmmaker claimed he was inspired by the author's "The Glass Key"). Kurosawa modeled Toshiro Mifune's rōnin after Hammett's Continental Op; ergo, he was a man seemingly devoid of a past. He just shows up in a town dominated by two corrupt, warring factions, and goads both sides into massacring each other. He betrays nothing personal about himself because doing so would run contrary to his task, and, on a basic narrative level, is of no consequence to the plot.

The Mystery Makes The Man

In a 1980 interview with Ric Gentry, Clint Eastwood revealed that Sergio Leone and his co-writers had devised a thorough backstory for his character:

"I wanted to play it with an economy of dialogue and to build a whole feeling through attitude and movements. So I said to Sergio, 'Let's keep the mystery of the character and just allude to what happened in the past.' Segio argued with me, though he did agree in a way, but it was just much harder for the Italian mentality to accept. They're just used to so much more exposition and I was throwing that out."

Leone ultimately came around, but when the film was finished, the producers were aghast. Per Eastwood, "They said, 'Christ, this guy isn't doing anything. He isn't saying anything. He doesn't even have a name! And that cigar is just sitting there burning.'"

That stoic persona, that terseness, and that cigar rescued the Western from its latter-day John Wayne doldrums, and made Eastwood a global movie star. It also established Leone as a supreme big-screen stylist, allowing him to make a string of masterpieces in "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Duck, You Sucker," and "Once Upon a Time in America." Sometimes less is more. Sometimes it's everything.

Read this next: The 20 Best Westerns Of All Time

The post Clint Eastwood Had To Fight To Make The Man With No Name A Mystery appeared first on /Film.

By the time Stanley Kubrick came to direct "Full Metal Jacket" in the mid-1980s, his legendary status had been well and truly established. At that point, most of his filmography was behind him. "Full Metal Jacket," released in 1987, would be his penultimate film, followed by "Eyes Wide Shut" in 1999 — the same year the director passed away. But Kubrick had long since ascended to a status in Hollywood that few other directors ever had or would reach. Naturally, actors were eager to be a part of his Vietnam War epic.

Kubrick, ever the informed and calculating artist, was well-aware of his reputation and took a characteristically unique approach to casting "Full Metal Jacket" by playing on that reputation. The director had always put the story first on whatever project he was working on, and as such was diligent about getting the right actors for his roles. As "Full Metal Jacket" star Matthew Modine once said of the director, "Stanley doesn't seem to be able to separate acting from life. You either are the character or you are not. It's not acting."

That was no different with his adaptation of Gus Hasford's "The Short-Timers." Kubrick was diligent about casting the right actors in leading roles, with Modine taking on the central role of Private JT "Joker" Davis supported by his friend Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle," and the former Marine, R. Lee Ermey, as the downright scary Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. But before those names were confirmed, the director sent out an international call for new faces to play the marines. As well as resulting in thousands of tapes to review, the stunt proved an effective marketing trick for his movie — just as Kubrick knew it would.

The Kubrick Mystique

As related in John Baxter's "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography," from his country home in England's Hertfordshire, Kubrick let "wannabe actors do much of the work of casting for him [by telling] the world's press that he wanted audition tapes from anyone who felt able to play an 18-year-old Marine." The 1984 casting call came with typically specific Kubrickian instructions that demanded actors "stand against a plain background in jeans and a white T-shirt with a card showing their name and a contact number." The performers would the run through a three-minute scene before providing some information on their personal life and interests. Finally, they were instructed to hold up a sheet showing their name, contact details, age, and date of birth.

YouTube is littered with some of the audition tapes, including one legendary example by Mr. Brian Atene ("the finest actor in the lot!"). Word also got back to almost as fine an actor, Val Kilmer, who similarly made a tape and delivered it directly to Kubrick by traveling to the UK where production was set to get underway. Ultimately, neither Atene nor Kilmer would be cast. Instead, according to Vincent LoBrutto's Kubrick biography, Kubrick's team pored over "as many as 3,000 videotapes of prospective movie Marine grunts," before paring them down to around "800" for the director to review.

But the tapes themselves weren't the only thing Kubrick had in mind when sending out his casting call. As Baxter's book noted, "Kubrick played on his mystique" with the casting call and the resulting publicity for his war epic was "phenomenal. Everyone soon knew about 'Full Metal Jacket.'" It was only after the thousands of tapes came in that Kubrcik instructed his assistant, actor Leon Vitali, to "discreetly invite proposals from professionals."

It Was About More Than Publicity

Stanley Kubrick's casting call can seem purely like a publicity stunt, considering he ultimately cast mostly-established pros in the lead roles. But it was more than just that. As Leon Vitali told The Guardian, "Stanley was just very, very open to someone being a good actor, and we'd try them out in different roles." Even after Matthew Modine had been cast, Vitali said he and Kubrick were still reviewing videotapes, adding, "It was like a jigsaw puzzle. We were three-quarters of the way into the film before we finished casting." Even once they turned to professional actors, those actors would be required to visit agencies to record their own taped audition, all at Kubrick's expense.

That said, there's no doubt the casting call did increase hype for the movie. As John Baxter noted, dozens of video companies were offering to film the audition tapes, including one in Boston which, at the height of the search, was churning out "30 pitches a day." As a result, Julian Senior, the Vice President of Advertising & Publicity for Warner Bros. Europe, was "inundated with tapes" and Kubrick had successfully created significant buzz for "Full Metal Jacket."

That was a good thing, too, considering even he was aware that after "Platoon," "Apocalypse Now," and "The Deer Hunter," audiences could easily be suffering from Vietnam War movie fatigue by the time his film debuted. Demonstrating a keen awareness of the media landscape in which he was working, Kubrick seemed to be constantly calculating behind the scenes of "Full Metal Jacket" — which turned out to be a bit much for the almost 60-year-old director. None of that seems to have impacted the final film, though, which, even without the great Brian Atene, remains one of, if not the best, Vietnam War movie ever made.

Read this next: The 14 Greatest War Movies Of The 21st Century

The post Stanley Kubrick Used Full Metal Jacket's Casting Call As A Publicity Stunt appeared first on /Film.

Changes:

• Fixed increased effect particle count for the bless, confuse, control, curse, fire field, flying eye, ice field, ice projection, levitate, negate magic, repel undead and trap spells with high framerates
• Fixed rendering issues with the levitate spell effect
• Fixed missing fire animation in the fire field spell
• Windows: Disabled "Crisp" Alpha Cutout AA with Intel graphics drivers to avoid rendering issues and crashes
• Changed the field of view slider to go from 50° to 100° (vertical) instead of from 75° to 125°
• Added support for uncompressed .fts files
• Added the ^realtime_year, ^realtime_month and ^realtime_day to get the current date
• Added support for specifying volume of non-looped ambiances with the `ammbiance` script command
• Added support for creating items without an icon existing at the same path as the script
• Added support for calling the `closestealbag` command from non-NPC entities
• Added support for fractional intervals in the `timer` command
• Added support for more than 16 active attractors and fixed overlapping attractors
• Fixed the ^$objontop script variable to not have a leading space and don't repeat 'player'
• Fixed a crash when dragging an entity without a 3D object (bug #1592)
• Fixed a crash when an equipped candle is destroyed (bug #1622)
• Fixed a crash with negative (or zero with -i) intervals in the `timer` command
• Fixed a crash when loading save files with linked items inside an inventory
• Fixed linked entities being removed from NPC inventories even if linked to the owning NPC
• Fixed the `replaceme` script command for NPC weapons not equipping the new weapon
• The mold linker is no longer used unless explicitly requested

This year has seen multiple updates to the Linux operating system from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA when it comes to covering graphics cards in the open-source kernel or improvements in processing power, as well as video codecs, leaks of new technology, and more. That being said, the most recent tests conducted by the Linux Hardware editor and reviewer of the website Phoronix — as well as an entrepreneur, Linux software engineer, and analyst — Michael Larabel, shed light on the AMD Radeon Gaming performance in Windows 11 and Ubuntu Linux environments.

Windows 11 OS Offers Best Graphics Performance For AMD Radeon GPUs Vs Linux 6.2

Larabel used several games available on PC and Linux operating systems. The games were chosen by titles that worked exceptionally well on Steam Play in Linux compared to the Windows 11 experience. In the coming days, Larabel plans to place Intel and NVIDIA under similar tests to find out what performs better, especially entering a new year. Today's focus is on AMD.

The game titles handpicked by Larabel were:

• Hitman 3
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Portal 2
• Quake II RTX 1.6
• Strange Brigade
• X-Plane 12

The Phoronix editor also chose three benchmarks for the tests. The first test handles better in Vulkan and OpenGL, while the second and third from UNIGINE are better equipped for OpenGL.

• GravityMark 1.72
• Unigine Heaven 4.0
• Unigine Superposition 1.0

Yesterday, we reported that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards were going through isolated but growing issues with overheating and losing performance because of the temperature spikes. It will be interesting to see if this will affect performance. Larabel utilized the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs for this testing.

The Windows operating system used for testing is Windows 11 Pro Edition, which he mentions was updated with the current drivers available. In contrast, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT driver used is the Adrenalin 22.11.2 Recommended WHQL driver, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTDX used Adrenalin 22.12.2. The difference between the two drivers is that the 22.11.2 Recommended driver offers the latest updates for Navi 2 GPUs, while the 22.12.2 driver offers the latest RDNA 3 drivers.

With Linux, in Ubuntu 22.10, Larabel used Linux 6.2-rc1 alongside Mesa 23.0-devel, offering the best support for RDNA 2 and 3 architectures. The processor utilized for the testing is Intel's i9-13900K CPU with 32GB DDR5-6000 memory on an ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI mobo and Solidigm's P44 PRO 2 TB NVMe solid state drive.

Hitman 3 showed higher gains with Windows 11 Pro and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, whereas the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT led close to the same performance on Steam Play in Linux and the standard Windows operating system (Windows was seven frames per second faster). The same is said for both frame time and resolution while stressing the game in a 4K environment.

Left 4 Dead 2 was the opposite, with the OpenGL rendering showing a better FPS on both graphics cards from AMD than in Windows 11 Pro. However, Portal 2 jumped back into Windows with both graphics cards, but Linux was a close competition on the newest GPU from AMD. Quake II RTX, especially having NVIDIA-centric ray tracing, was almost identical in Windows and Linux, with ray tracing activated showing the most similarities with it deactivated. Linux did pull slightly ahead of both graphics card tests in the game for the RADV ray tracing driver, which shows the amount of work placed into the compatibility and performance of the driver over the last year. But, once again, in 4K resolution tests, Windows 11 Pro outshined Ubuntu. Strange Brigade also favored Windows 11 Pro over Ubuntu Linux and X-Plane 12.

GravityMark 1.72 benchmarking allowed for the Ubuntu Linux graphics to outshine Windows 11 Pro most of the time, thanks to the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver and Vulkan driver support, including 4K resolution settings. Larabel notes that the UNIGINE Heaven benchmark is slowly becoming outdated but remains relatively faithful to OpenGL native benchmarking. Windows 11 did show the most considerable improvement on the Heaven benchmark tests but flipped in the Superposition benchmarks, only gaining a slight lead over Windows.

Next for the Phoronix editor will be Intel Arc Graphics and NVIDIA's newer RTX 40 series GPUs in the coming days. You can check all benchmark results on his Phoronix website, and you can check out his other projects on his professional portfolio site, MichaelLarabel.com.

The post AMD Radeon Graphics Cards Offer Better Performance In Windows 11 Vs Linux 6.2 by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

Four Elemental Rods are scattered around The Abbey grounds in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and you should retrieve them all and bring them to the Elemental Altar. By doing so, you will unleash their powers and get the second Moon Seal in return. This will lead you to the second Blood Gate and its challenge. Once completed, you will be able to unlock a new Word of Power, “Reveal,” which, as the name suggests, lets you discover hidden paths, items, and routes within The Abbey grounds.

Finding the four Elemental Rods might be tricky, as not all are easy to spot. For two of them, moreover, you need to use the Word of Power “Open” to get them. And you must guess the right spot for each at the Elemental Altar; otherwise, the second Moon Seal won’t appear. Don’t worry, however. This guide will show you all Elemental Rod locations in Marvel’s Midnight Suns and help you place them the right way at the altar.

Where to find the Elemental Rods in Marvel’s Midnight Suns

The game features four Elemental Rods: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Each is hidden at a different location, sometimes far from the altar. You can check where to find them below.

Fire Rod - The Chapel

The Fire Rod can be found inside The Abbey, at the Chapel. Go past the Barracks, and you will quickly notice it on its pedestal.

Water Rod - The Pool

The Water Rod is one of the easiest to find, as it is placed under the bridge at the small pool outside The Abbey. You will quickly notice it once you make your way to his area.

Air Rod - Whispering Wood

The Air Rod is placed on a stand near Whispering Wood. To reach it, go to Agatha’s altar and pass through the little arch on your right. Use the Word of Power “Open” to make your way through the closed door and discover a new path. Go down the trail and immediately turn left when you can do so. You will find the Air Rod shortly after, at the end of the route.

Earth Rod - Hunter’s Folly

The Earth Rod is located at The Hunter’s Folly, southeast of The Abbey. You should be able to fast travel to this location to reach it quickly. Once you arrive there, the door will be closed. However, you can use the Word of Power “Open” to access the location. The final Rod will be on your left.

Elemental Rods puzzle solution

Once you have collected all the Elemental Rods, you should bring them to the Elemental Altar and place them in the right spot. Go to Agatha’s Altar to do that, and remember that you can always fast-travel to this location on the map.

Each Rod must be placed on its respective pedestal. You can try that yourself how many times you prefer, as there is no consequence if you don’t guess the correct spot immediately. The game will tell you whether you have placed it right, and if you have missed it, you can always try again. However, if you are looking for the solution to the Elemental Rods puzzle at Agatha’s Altar, here’s the proper order.

From left to right, you need to place respectively: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire. Once done, you will obtain the second Moon Seal, which you can retrieve from the altar.

With the second Moon Seal in your inventory, you can head to the second Blood Altar north of Standing Stones and start the trial. When you complete it, you will obtain the second Word of Power, “Reveal.”

If you need more help with Marvel’s Midnight Suns, you can check our guides on increasing the Research Level and gaining Heroism.

The post Marvel’s Midnight Suns – Elemental Rod Locations by Agnese Carluccio appeared first on Wccftech.

"Almost Famous" is easily one of the best coming-of-age films of the past few decades. Just about everyone with a pulse is touched by this road film about an aspiring young rock journalist that joins a band on tour in the early 1970s as they grapple with their newfound commercial success. The cult classic is made all the more compelling by the breakout performance from the teenage lead, Patrick Fugit.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe and casting director Gail Levin were "late in the process" before they stumbled upon Fugit's self-taped audition, Crowe revealed to Comingsoon.net. The filmmaker achieved huge commercial success with his previous films, "Say Anything" and "Jerry Maguire." By contrast, Fugit was "a complete unknown from Salt Lake City, Utah," as the actor himself admitted. Luckily for the 16-year-old, "​​it turns out that was exactly the kind of thing [Crowe] wanted."

William, the protagonist of "Almost Famous," has an innocent sensibility that makes him stand out backstage among the pot-smoking, free-loving rockstars. Fugit's lack of experience in the industry made him perfect for the role. "He was a pure soul, an authentic Utah kid with a bowl cut and a funny, put-upon manner," Crowe recalled, per Independent. "He waved his arms around a lot. He made us laugh."

Fugit Thought The Movie Was About Politics

Patrick Fugit actually found out about "Almost Famous" because a friend of his was auditioning for the lead role, according to an interview with Independent. "He needed a ride to do this audition tape at his agency," the actor remembered. "And I was like, 'OK, cool,' and I listened to him do it outside the room." Fugit continued, "Afterward, I was like, 'These scenes are very good — what is this film?'" His friend told Fugit it was a Cameron Crowe picture and introduced him to the films "Say Anything" and "Jerry Maguire."

The premise of "Almost Famous" was totally shrouded in mystery during the early audition process. "[The audition scenes] were all written to be about a political journalist following a politician on his campaign, because Cameron didn't want to let on that it was about music at first," Fugit explained. He filmed "three random, rapid-fire scenes throughout" that included his introduction to Penny Lane and their confrontation in the forest, per Comingsoon.net. Of course, Fugit had no idea he would be delivering those lines to a groupie — sorry, band-aid — played by Kate Hudson.

Two months after submitting his audition tape, the teenage actor got a call to Utah from Hollywood — he had received a callback. "They flew me and my mom out to LA first class and put us up in a hotel and I did my audition there," Fugit told Independent. "Anyway, I went up into Cameron's office and I didn't know what he looked like. But there he was, this guy with long dark hair, a T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts on and, I think, he was in flip flops. He was super informal."

Crowe Kept Fugit Innocent For The Sake Of The Role

Cameron Crowe seemed more laid back than Patrick Fugit expected at his "Almost Famous" callback, but the director caught him totally off guard with a slew of music-related questions. "At this point, I still thought the movie was about politics," the actor admitted. "So I told him I wasn't into music at all." Fugit told Crowe that he liked Green Day and owned the new Chumbawamba album, so Crowe played him some music and recorded his reactions.

"Almost Famous" was a huge break for Fugit, but Crowe was careful to maintain his innocence during the film's production. "I wasn't into party stuff, I wasn't really looking for it," Fugit admitted to Screen Rant. "But even if I had been, Cameron was like, 'We gotta keep this kid's naivete intact. We gotta keep how green he is intact. Nobody is gonna be offering him drinks or to smoke pot.'" Crowe's goal was that anything Fugit was experiencing for the first time, he'd be experiencing in front of the camera. Not everyone onset was as committed to maintaining Fugit's innocence as the director. "There were other castmates that had a kind of side mission to corrupt me," Fugit joked. "But between my mom, who was there, and the hawk crew [of the set teacher and set acting coach] and Cameron, it just was not going to happen." 

The Director Kept It Real

The 16-year-old actor also had to maintain his high school education while shooting, which created a natural separation between him and the older cast. "I would go to set and I would work and then I would go do school in the trailer while everybody else was playing Allman Brothers on acoustic guitars," Fugit lamented to Screen Rant. "We had some amazing musicians in there and they're playing their own music, and they're playing rock 'n' roll together, all in costume in the dressing room of an actual concert venue, and I'd be like, 'Cool, I'm gonna go learn some geography, I'll be back in 40 minutes whenever we're ready [to film] again.'" Fugit said that as much as he feels he missed out on a lot of the fun his castmates got to experience, in hindsight, he knows it was a good thing. "It kept me feeling like the outsider that William really was."

The fictional band Stillwater is loosely based on the Allman Brothers (among other bands) whom Cameron Crowe joined on tour as a young rock journalist himself. A huge chunk of the film was based on Crowe's experience with the Allman Brothers, including when Russell jumps off of a roof into a pool and his sabotage of William's interview — Gregg Allman confirmed it himself in his memoir "My Cross to Bear." Crowe wanted Fugit to remain as innocent as he was when he joined the band on the road so that the film would be true to his own experience as a teenager, and it worked. The young actor gives an incredibly compelling performance because he is so touchingly naive in a thoroughly indulgent and dangerous world. Innocence can't be maintained forever, but things worked out for Crowe in the end — just as they do for William.

Read this next: The 20 Best '90s Romantic Comedies Ranked

The post How A 16-Year-Old Patrick Fugit Landed His Part In Almost Famous appeared first on /Film.

British businesses have complained about the tactics used by Sage, the UK's largest listed tech company, to push them into accepting more expensive subscription services or have access to their existing accounting software packages switched off. From a report: Small companies across the UK rely on the FTSE 100 company's Sage50 software for book-keeping, sending invoices, processing orders and helping with tax payments. But in recent months, Sage has pushed customers who had been sold single-payment, long-term licences to the software on to monthly subscriptions that work out to be more expensive over the long run, by saying they would turn off their licences on security grounds, despite having no specific grounds to do so in their terms and conditions. "It's a pitload of crap," said Kate Barton, owner of model train company Reeves 2000, who last upgraded her so-called perpetual package in January 2019 for a licence she expected to last 15 years. Barton now faces monthly payments of $187 on a subscription model. "This is a bigger picture of the way things are going, where we're forced on to a subscription for everything," she said. "It's quite frightening." Under the direction of chief executive Steve Hare, Sage's focus on subscription software forms part of a plan to achieve more regular recurring revenues, which would make it less vulnerable to the income shocks that can occur from an overreliance on new customers making one-off purchases.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jenna Ortega has a lot in common with Wednesday Addams. The actor might not have a disembodied hand as a sidekick, but she shares her character's love for the macabre, an aversion to color, and a dry sense of humor to match. With so many similarities, it's no wonder that Ortega constantly steals the show in "Wednesday." Of course, the Addams daughter is always a force to be reckoned with; pair her with the right actor and electricity is all but guaranteed.

Considering how well-loved past iterations of the Addams family have been, new actors are always faced with a big challenge: getting to the heart of their character without coming across as a knock-off. It's a careful balancing act. No one wants to look like they're ripping off Barry Sonnenfeld's '90s movies, which up until the release of Netflix's "Wednesday" were perhaps the most well-known version of the family. Anjelica Huston, who played Morticia Addams in the movies, even avoided watching the original '60s sitcom so she could come up with her own take on her character. Still, there is always the risk that if an actor goes too far in the other direction, their character will become unrecognizable.

Ortega did a pretty good job of handling the balancing act, but doing so took a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the show's creators, had to convince Netflix executives that Wednesday should remain a dark character. Even then, the final script had an uncharacteristically self-depreciating line that Ortega had to fight to cut — and the show is much better off for it.

Self-Conscious About A Dress

When you hear the name Wednesday Addams, 'fashion icon' might not be your first thought. But the "Wednesday" costume team put a lot of work into Jenna Ortega's look. Her most memorable outfit (other than her custom Nevermore uniform) is hands-down the black gown she wears to the Rave'n school dance — and in some ways, the dress was the perfect match for Wednesday.

The unapologetic frills aren't afraid to take up space, and you need a certain level of self-confidence to wear a black outfit to a party with an all-white dress code. Still, Ortega has revealed she had to fight against Wednesday making self-deprecating comments about the outfit:

"I remember there's a line where I'm talking about a dress, and she initially was supposed to say, 'Oh, my God, I'm freaking out over a dress, I literally hate myself.' And I was blown away because that sounded like I — it was just a bunch of little things like that."

"Freaking out" about clothing is stereotypically hyper-feminized behavior and Wednesday's the polar opposite of the classic girly girl, so it isn't hard to see how the line ended up in the script. Still, the 'I literally hate myself' bit is very much at odds with Wednesday's usual unapologetic confidence, and it's very frustrating that the line seems to dismiss femininity.

The line ultimately comes across as an "I'm not like other girls" type comment, but that trope is so rooted in sexism and self-consciousness that I can't possibly imagine it applying to Wednesday. If the line stayed in the scene, Ortega's Wednesday would've got too far in a new direction to be recognizable — or at least satisfying. By insisting that the line was cut, Ortega ensured that Wednesday stayed true to her roots.

The Wednesday Actors Know Best

Incidentally, this wasn't the first time that a Wednesday actor fought to change an important part of the script. I won't include any plot details, but just know that Barry Sonnenfeld's "The Addams Family" originally had an unsatisfying ending. You can thank then-9-year-old Christina Ricci for the swap.

In a spoiler-filled interview with Screen Rant, Sonnenfeld revealed that the entire cast was frustrated by the movie's ending — and elected Ricci as their spokesperson. While it might seem counterintuitive to send a kid to the bargaining table, she proved to be a skilled negotiator:

"She came back to the table and said, 'We hate the ending. We won't do this ending.' I said, 'What do you mean?' And Christina went on with bullet points, like it was a PowerPoint presentation 30 years ago, explaining all the reasons why [the ending had to be changed] ... She was so articulate that [writers] Scott Rudin and Paul Rudnick and myself went, 'Jesus, we're gonna have to change this ending.' We did it because Christina was so articulate, and thank God she was because I think she's right."

At the end of the day, the original plans for both "Wednesday" and "The Addams Family" would've been incredibly frustrating. By speaking up, Ricci and Jenna Ortega helped to ensure that two more iterations of the Addams family would be a smashing success.

"Wednesday" is currently streaming on Netflix.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Jenna Ortega Rejected a Line in Wednesday for Sounding Out of Character appeared first on /Film.

The tagline on the poster for Mel Brooks' celebrated 1974 comedy film "Blazing Saddles" was, "Never give a saga an even break." Not only is that a clever pun, but it reveals the central philosophy of modern pop satire. Anything that takes itself seriously enough the deem itself a "saga" is most assuredly ripe for ribald parody. Brooks would continue to deny even breaks to Alfred Hitchcock ("High Anxiety"), historical epics ("History of the World Part I"), and "Star Wars" ("Spaceballs"). In 1993, Brooks -- reacting to the massive, massive popularity of Kevin Reynolds' 1991 actioner "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" -- elected to make "Robin Hood: Men in Tights," a raunchy, slapstick farce that skewered all things Sherwood. 

Many of Brooks' gags in "Men in Tights" were shamelessly recycled from his unsuccessful 1975 sitcom "When Things Were Rotten," starring Dick Gautier as Robin Hood, but he at least did have the good sense to very occasionally skew modern. Case in point: one of the more pointed gags in "Men in Tights" comes when Robin Hood (Cary Elwes) is asked why he should be taken seriously by the court. "Because unlike some other Robin Hoods," he said, "I can speak with an English accent." Notoriously, Kevin Costner, star of "Prince of Thieves," sounds like he came to Sherwood Forest via Southern California. 

Elwes was certainly committed to "Men in Tights" and delivered an energetic and hilarious performance. In a 2021 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, however, the actor revealed that he hung up on Mel Brooks when offered the role. Elwes merely assumed that it was a prank.

'Don't Hang Up! It's Really Me!'

It's not every day that Mel Brooks calls you personally on the phone, so Elwes can be forgiven for assuming it was someone else pretending to be Brooks. Indeed, he assumed it was Jim Carrey specifically. He told THR:

"Mel is wonderful. He called me up out of the blue, and I thought someone was putting me on. I thought it was someone doing a great Mel Books impression. And he said, 'This is Mel Brooks.' I said, 'Uh-huh. Sure.' And I hung up on him. I thought it was Jim Carrey messing with me. And then when he called back, he said, "Don't hang up! It's really me! I want you for Robin Hood. We'll cast the film together.'"

In the early 1990s, Elwes was already a known quantity, thanks to his appearances in films like "The Princess Bride," "Hot Shots!," and "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Jim Carrey, however, wouldn't break out as a major movie star until 1994, and it wouldn't be until 1997 that Elwes and Carrey would work together (on Tom Shadyac's "Liar Liar"). At the time, Carrey was best known for the sketch comedy show "In Living Color," and delightfully strange cult comedies like "Earth Girls Are Easy." 

As such, it might be unclear as to why Elwes would assume Carrey would call him pretending to be Mel Brooks, but the two have been friends for a long time, and it's likely that friendship extends back before their first on-screen collaboration.

Elwes and Carrey would appear in a second film together, with the 2009 motion-capture animated film "A Christmas Carol." In that film, Carrey played four characters -- Ebenezer Scrooge and all three of the Ghosts of Christmas -- while Elwes played eight roles. In the scenes where Carrey acted opposite himself, Elwes served as his stand-in.

Read this next: The 15 Best '90s Comedies Ranked

The post Cary Elwes Thought Mel Brooks' Pitch For Robin Hood: Men In Tights Was A Jim Carrey Prank appeared first on /Film.

This article contains major spoilers for "Glass Onion."

Where "Knives Out" featured a cast of suspects that resembled archetypes during the height of the Trump era, in "Glass Onion," the great detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is marooned with an ensemble that resembles the leeches of a world ravaged by the pandemic. Although these characters aren't direct indictments of real-world folks, it's difficult not to see the obvious parallels. The most striking resemblance of them all, however, lies in Miles Bron (Edward Norton), a tech billionaire who gathers his inner circle of friends to join him on his private island for a murder mystery, which goes terribly sideways.

Over the past few months, the world of social media has had front-row seats to the very public meltdown of Elon Musk. Day by day, the predicament of purchasing Twitter for over $44 billion has not gone exactly as he thought it would. Rather than trying to make the platform a better place, he's only shown the public the true demeanor of parasites like himself. 

The character of Miles feels so pointed at Musk, yet according to director Rian Johnson, the release of "Glass Onion" amid the Tesla CEO's downfall was merely a case of impeccable timing (via Wired):

"There's a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into it. But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment. A friend of mine said, 'Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon.' And that's just sort of a horrible, horrible accident, you know?"

'It's Very Bizarre'

I think the cultural accuracy of the characters in "Glass Onion" goes to show how attuned Johnson is to the very stupid times we live in. "It's so weird. It's very bizarre," he said.

He's right on the money talking about Miles as an amalgamation of reckless tech billionaires, as the character's DNA is built upon the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Elizabeth Holmes, with Musk's idiocy thrown in for good measure. In many ways, Johnson has created the ultimate pastiche. Miles surrounds himself with folks like Duke (Dave Bautista), a dim-witted men's rights activist streamer, in addition to Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), a vapid supermodel influencer with a penchant for tweeting out racial and ethnic slurs.

The boom of negligent tech billionaires used to have Zuckerberg under the microscope, but everything Musk has been doing lately has all but stolen the spotlight. Norton brilliantly portrays the fragile ego of this kind of public figure crumbling at the slightest bit of criticism. As the mystery of "Glass Onion" unfolds, so does the collapse of Miles' frail empire.

Miles has no solid ground to stand on, so he buys his loyalty instead. Akin to the Glass Onion itself, the lack of integrity is hidden in plain sight. The finale portrays Miles as a petulant child who is way too easily rattled when he doesn't get his way. Johnson may not have intended for Norton's character to directly parallel Musk, but the correspondence is uncanny, especially when it comes to releasing a new product with potentially catastrophic consequences.

"Glass Onion" is currently streaming on Netflix.

Read this next: The 14 Best Noir Movies Ranked

The post Rian Johnson Says Glass Onion Mirroring Elon Musk's Twitter Downfall Was A 'Horrible, Horrible Accident' appeared first on /Film.

Of all the many villains in Gotham City's menacing menagerie, the Penguin is one of the strangest. The character of Oswald Cobblepot, the stout and menacing crime lord with a penchant for penguins, has been portrayed by a handful of actors, including Burgess Meredith ("Batman" '66), Robin Lord Taylor ("Gotham"), and Wayne Knight ("Harley Quinn"), but the two most people think of as the Dark Knight villain are Danny DeVito and Colin Farrell. DeVito played the Penguin in Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" in 1992 and Farrell played the character in Matt Reeves's "The Batman" in 2022. With 30 years between the characters and two very different takes, it's really tough to tell which Penguin was truly the greatest.

In a Vanity Fair polygraph interview with his daughter, Lucy DeVito, to promote their animated series "Little Demon," Danny DeVito was asked which Penguin performance he thought was better, between him and Collin Farrell. While he was complimentary of Farrell and called him "a terrific guy," he couldn't help but say his Penguin from "Batman Returns" was better. DeVito might be a bit biased and was only speaking his truth, but is he right? Let's look at these two stellar silver screen Penguins and determine once and for all who played the perfect Cobblepot.

The Argument For Farrell's Penguin

Both versions of the Penguin forced their performers to go under extensive makeup. Farrell felt like his makeup, courtesy of artist Mike Marino, allowed him to be a "malleable marionette," as if he was puppeteering another body from within. Farrell frequently has a tough time finding villainous roles because his caterpillar eyebrows and big sad brown eyes make him almost too lovable. He has a face that's somehow both reminiscent of a kicked puppy and impossibly handsome, so the makeup allowed him to really act without people focusing on his face. 

Farrell is an incredible actor, and he fits seamlessly into Reeves's grim noir version of Gotham city. There are numerous opportunities to really overdo it and ham it up as the Penguin, but Farrell plays it with more nuance, giving a grounded villain for Robert Pattinson's young Batman to battle against. His trademark charm is also still apparent, even without the handsome face to sell it, and ole Oswald is one seriously charismatic villain. He's a joy to watch and is clearly having the time of his life, injecting some fire into the cold, dark world of "The Batman."

It's challenging to make a cape and cowl comic book movie that's gritty and grounded without sacrificing what makes these stories so great, but Reeves managed to do it with "The Batman," and Farrell's Penguin is a huge part of why it works so well. As the kids say, he clearly understood the assignment.

DeVito's Perfect Comic Book Penguin

But 30 years earlier, Danny DeVito took on the role of the Penguin in Tim Burton's "Batman Returns," the sequel to his wildly successful "Batman," starring Michael Keaton as the caped crusader. Unlike Farrell's grounded, realistic take, DeVito made his version of the characters as disturbing and despicable as possible. Long before he played perpetual creep Frank Reynolds on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," DeVito played Cobblepot as a horny, hungry, filthy slimeball of a human who was honestly part-feral. Raised in a sewer and significantly more attached to the arctic birds from which he derives his name than Farrell's Penguin, DeVito's version of the character was pure comic book fantasy, but he gave it 110% and made it work. 

DeVito ate real raw fish on-camera (and not exactly sashimi, either) and kept a mix of mouthwash and spirulina in his mouth to achieve that disgusting dental look, dedicating himself to the role with abandon. The actor had previously mostly starred in comedies, so "Batman Returns" was a way for him to really stretch his wings (no pun intended). He really went for it, and DeVito's version of the Penguin is absolutely terrifying. He's one of the best cinematic villains of all time, embedding himself in the subconscious of everyone who saw the film, including a young Robert Pattinson! DeVito's portrayal of the Penguin is genuinely iconic, but it's also so different from Farrell's that it feels wrong to even compare them.

Why Not Both?

"Batman Returns" is a dark, twisted comic book movie that relishes in weirdness, while "The Batman" is a gritty, grounded take on the dark knight's early days as the hero of Gotham. They're both fantastic, but they're also both doing very different things. Each has a totally different take on the characters and the DC Comics world, and if you switched Penguins, it simply wouldn't work. Both DeVito and Farrell are absolutely incredible in their respective roles, but what they're doing is apples and oranges, a matter of preference. If you like your Penguin to be a sewer-dwelling Harvey Weinstein with fish breath, then DeVito's version is tailor-made to terrify and gross you out. If you like your Penguin to be more like Al Capone pre-syphilis, then Farrell is the way to go. 

Disagreeing with Danny DeVito feels like a sin somehow, but on this one I have to, because neither Penguin is better — they both rule. 

Read this next: What These DC Villains Really Look Like Under The Makeup

The post Danny DeVito Believes His Performance As Penguin In Batman Returns Is Better Than Colin Farrell's In The Batman appeared first on /Film.

Demand for graphics cards significantly increased during the pandemic as some people spent more time at home playing games, whereas others tried to mine Ethereum to get some cash. But it looks like now that the world has re-opened and Ethereum mining on GPUs is dead, demand for desktop discrete GPUs has dropped dramatically. From a report: In fact, shipments of discrete graphics cards hit a ~20-year low in Q3 2022, according to data from Jon Peddie Research. The industry shipped around 6.9 million standalone graphics boards for desktop PCs -- including the best graphics cards for gaming -- and a similar number of discrete GPUs for notebooks in the third quarter. In total, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia shipped around 14 million standalone graphics processors for desktops and laptops, down 42% year-over-year based on data from JPR. Meanwhile, shipments of integrated GPUs totaled around 61.5 million units in Q3 2022. In fact, 6.9 million desktop discrete add-in-boards (AIBs) is the lowest number of graphics cards shipped since at least Q3 2005 and, keeping in mind sales of standalone AIBs were strong in the early 2000s as integrated GPUs were not good enough back then, it is safe to say that in Q3 2022 shipments of desktop graphics boards hit at least a 20-year low.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post contains spoilers for "No Time To Die."

Remember when producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson introduced us to a more realistic, nuanced Bond in 2006's "Casino Royale?" Then remember when they blew him to hell in a hail of ballistics at the end of "No Time To Die?" Daniel Craig's 007 had quite the arc -- going from a fully-formed, scarred, yet suave spy to a generic action hero in five films. While it was ultimately tragic, it was the first authentic arc the Bond saga had ever seen. For four decades prior, the series adapted individual Fleming novels into films.

With Craig's Bond departure, it's time to start the sacred process of casting for a new super spy. Broccoli confirmed in 2021 that she and Eon Productions were aiming to have their new Bond confirmed in "a couple of years." As of 2021, they said they're looking for someone in their 30s to wear the holy tux for "a 10, 12-year commitment." Once a new 007 arrives, you can expect smoke to rise from the chimney of MI6, but until then, speculation is rife.

Many current candidates were up for the role in "Casino Royale." Henry Cavill almost got the "Royale" role before producers went with the older Craig. "Avatar: The Way of Water" star Sam Worthington was seriously considered for Bond but lost out due to not being "debonair" enough. But another Sam auditioned but missed out — oddly, for the opposite reason of Worthington.

Auditioning At Bond HQ

In the years leading up to "Casino Royale," Sam Heughan had appeared in a handful of plays and soap opera episodes. It would be almost a decade before he landed the lead role of Jamie Fraser in Starz's "Outlander," making his consideration to portray Bond even more impressive.

The now 42-year-old published his memoir, "Waypoints" in 2022, detailing his experience auditioning for Broccoli during a time when he was "shuttling between fruitless auditions in L.A. and London." In an extract shared by EW, Heughan wrote:

"I went along to the Bond HQ and tried out for the casting director. Afterwards, I was invited to head up to the next floor, where producer Barbara Broccoli was waiting for me, like M, sitting in a leather chair across a large table. A replica gold revolver served as a centerpiece in front of her. The director of 'Casino Royale,' Martin Campbell, was also there. We spoke a little about Scotland and about Bond, read the scene once, then I left. It was all so quick, the sweat beneath my leather jacket just starting to form."

37-year-old Craig would be chosen over the then 25-year-old Heughan. The producers ditched Cavill in the process, too. Heughan was told he wasn't "edgy enough." The actor struggled with that critique, considering it to be a comment on his personality rather than his acting skills. (To be fair, it kind of is.) But the decision also likely had to do with his age.

'It Wasn't A Question Of Becoming A Bad Boy'

Hailing from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, Heughan would have been the first Scot to take on the role of Bond since Sean Connery in the franchise's early years.

Being in his early 20s probably didn't help Heughan in terms of "edginess," which is something that the actor came to learn in time. In the years since his audition, he wrote, "It wasn't a question of becoming a bad boy... The edge the Bond team sought could be achieved through self-confidence, which to be fair I was certainly lacking at the time."

At least by losing out on the role, he dodged becoming the first James Bond to be killed on-screen. All might not be lost for the "Outlander" star, as he might still be a contender for the next Bond outing. However, he's probably a bit too old -- considering Broccoli's confirmation that she'd prefer an actor in his 30s. But at least William Shatner thinks Heughan would make a good 007. Who knows? Maybe he's developed some of that edge the producers wanted.

Read this next: 10 Underrated James Bond Movies That Deserve More Respect

The post Outlander Star Sam Heughan Explains Why He Lost James Bond to Daniel Craig appeared first on /Film.

Elden Ring is more than just a brilliant open-world game - it heralds a renaissance for the genre. For decades, devs' approach to this genre has been to add detail - to craft a perfect universe where players can explore wherever they want, and this 'more is more' approach meets with varying degrees of success. For every Grand Theft Auto city packed with missions, shops, golf courses, and bowling alleys, or for every Elder Scrolls region stuffed with dungeons to explore, there are bland interpretations of real-world locations that may get the details right but wind up feeling dull and puffy.

Of course, the most obvious punching bags are any of the recent Ubisoft open-world games. It makes sense for almost every Assassin’s Creed  to have an open world as they're set in real-world locations from history, but Ubisoft has stuck open worlds (or very big maps) on many of its other series with mixed results. Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon all have huge islands or cities to explore, but not a lot in them besides millions of meaningless collectibles that eventually give you an achievement.

MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The best Elden Ring builds, Elden Ring bosses, The best Elden Ring classes

One of Chris Farley's best-known "Saturday Night Live" comedy sketches is "Chippendales Audition," which pits Farley against guest host Patrick Swayze in a dance-off for the ages. Farley plays "Barney" and Swayze plays "Adrian," two male striptease performers who appear before a panel of judges onstage at a Chippendales nightclub, which only has the budget for one dancer.

Farley was new to "SNL" when he appeared in "Chippendales Audition;" it was only his fourth episode, and it helped the late comedian make a name for himself early in his stint on the NBC show. However, in recent years, the famous 1990 sketch, written by Jim Downey, has come under fire for essentially fat-shaming Farley. The humor of the sketch is largely predicated on the idea that a heavyset performer like Farley would be evenly matched in a Chippendales audition against the "lean, muscular, healthy" dancer played by Swayze (who had ballet training in real life and had shot to fame with his role in the 1987 film "Dirty Dancing.")

Owing to this, not every member of the "SNL" cast and crew was a fan of "Chippendales Audition." That includes future "Better Call Saul" star Bob Odenkirk, whose time behind-the-scenes as a writer for "SNL" overlapped with Farley's first year as a cast member. In the book "The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts" by Tanner Colby and Farley's brother, Tom Farley Jr. (via The Ringer), Odenkirk was blunt in his assessment of the "Chippendales Audition" sketch, saying:

"I didn't like the fact that the first thing [Farley] became known for was that Chippendales thing, which I hated. F****** lame, weak bulls***. I can't believe anyone liked it enough to put it on the show. F*** that sketch. He never should have done it."

Chris Rock Wasn't A Fan, Either

In "Chippendales Audition," Kevin Nealon's judge breaks the news to Barney that, while his dances moves are better than Adrian's, he hasn't made the cut at Chippendales because his physique is "flat and flabby." Barney loses the audition, the spotlight shifts to Adrian's winning voiceover thoughts, and that's that. This made "Chippendales Audition" fall flat for Farley's "SNL" castmate Chris Rock, who was no more enamored of the sketch than Bob Odenkirk was. In "The Chris Farley Show," Rock says:

"I always hated [that sketch]. The joke of it is basically, 'We can't hire you because you're fat.' I mean, he's a fat guy, and you're going to ask him to dance with no shirt on. OK. That's enough. You're gonna get that laugh. But when he stops dancing you have to turn it in his favor. There's no turn there. There's no comic twist to it. It's just f****** mean."

"Chippendales Audition" has its defenders, such as "SNL" writer and producer Robert Smigel, who pointed out on "The Howard Stern Show" that the sketch showed off Farley's "nimble" athleticism as a physical comedian. Farley comes out on stage in a bowtie, shakes his derriere, rips off his sleeveless shirt, and proceeds to do a flawless rendition of "the worm," falling into it from a standing position and then jumping right back up.

That said, the sketch could be read as punching down toward someone who's overweight. In the 2015 documentary "I Am Chris Farley," comedian Tom Arnold recalled Farley himself calling him up and saying, "They want me to do a sketch where I'm stripping for Chippendales with Patrick Swayze, and they want me to take my shirt off. And then I'm the fat guy. What do you think? It's just embarrassing."

No matter where you stand on the famous sketch, you can't deny it helped put Chris Farley on the map and helped turn him into a comedy legend. Sadly, we lost Chris Farley far too soon, and his career and life were cut short before he could blossom even more, but his legacy lives on.

Read this next: The Best Comedy Movies Of 2022, Ranked

The post Not Everyone at Saturday Night Live Looks Back Fondly at Chris Farley's Famous Chippendales Sketch appeared first on /Film.

(Welcome to Ani-time Ani-where, a regular column dedicated to helping the uninitiated understand and appreciate the world of anime.)

Anime has its fair share of dark fantasy stories -- think "Fullmetal Alchemist," "Attack on Titan," "Demon Slayer," and so on. More recently, we've seen more and more dark fantasy-action anime with horror influences making it big within the mainstream shonen anime landscape.

But before all of these, before Eren looked up at a terrifying titan, before the Elric brothers tampered with the law of equivalent exchange, and even before "Vinland Saga" and "Castlevania," there was "Berserk." One of the most influential and legendary dark fantasy manga and anime, this is a story with a legacy that has influenced multiple titles, from other anime and manga to video games like "Dark Souls," "Devil May Cry" and "Final Fantasy VII."

It's also a manga that has suffered from never having the complete adaptation it deserves. We've got three "Berserk" adaptations, and they've all adapted the exact same arc from early in the story, ending abruptly just as the plot really gets going. But of the three, it's the 1997 adaptation produced by studio OLM, INC (which also produced the "Pokémon" anime) that truly stands out, taking the incompleteness of the story and using it as a feature rather than a bug to deliver one of the absolute bleakest single-season anime series ever. It's an anime with a heart-wrenching, abrupt ending that's both an incredible ad for the manga and the perfect kick in the nuts to culminate this tragic fantasy.

"Berserk" is the tale of a man named Guts -- a hyper-masculine, rugged warrior with a big-ass sword -- and the rise and fall of the greatest army of mercenaries in the land. Think of it as "Game of Thrones" by way of Clive Barker.

What Makes It Great

The first thing you notice about "Berserk" is how well-developed its characters are. Though there are clearly three main characters — Guts, Casca, and Griffith — every named member of the Band of the Falcon in the film has a personality, flaws, and motivations. This helps sell the setting as more than just big swords and castles, especially since, surprisingly given the famous iconography of the manga, the vast majority of the series is rather light on fantasy. Instead, the arc covered by the anime adaptations focuses more on medieval military and tactics, delivering a great portrayal of how free companies operated and their role in huge wars. 

There are fantasy elements, yes, but they lurk in the background, with the characters just so accustomed to everyday horrors and cruelty that they are either oblivious or tend to ignore the supernatural horrors lurking in the shadows. And you better believe there are horrors, plenty of them. The anime, directed by Naohito Takahashi and written by five different screenwriters, most notably Yukiyoshi Ôhashi (head writer for "Yu Yu Hakusho"), knows exactly when to turn the dial one way or another, going from hyper-violence thrills to absolute terror to earnest sentimentalism. Part of why the horror works so well is because of the eerie visuals of the show, the hand-drawn animation aided by background art that resembles medieval paintings and highlight how disturbing, twisted, and violent the story is.

Among the highlights of this adaptation is the incredible soundtrack, composed by Satoshi Kon's collaborator Susumu Hirasawa. From the ethereal "Guts' Theme" to the personification of fear and trauma in the track, well, "Fear," the score masterfully encapsulated the right emotions within this rather bleak story.

A Tragedy Of Survival

Make no mistake, "Berserk" is a bleak story. Indeed, it's easy to see how it inspired edgy franchises like "Attack on Titan" and "Dark Souls" beyond just the big guy with a giant sword and the quiet, badass female warrior archetypes.

It's the anime's portrayal of a world so devoid of a happy ending, where hope is an unobtainable luxury and cruelty can be found anywhere (even if you don't see it at first), that has become a staple of seinen (adult) manga and anime in the years since its release. But what makes this particular adaptation different and special is that the hopelessness isn't super apparent. It's not like "Attack on Titan," which, right from the very beginning, tells you this is an apocalyptic tale where humanity fights for survival. Instead, we spend a lot of the season just going from one battle to the next, and you would be forgiven to think of this as just another medieval story of warriors, and not a particularly grim or depressing one.

However, once the characters start opening up, you slowly begin to see that their smiles, their small talk, and even their pleasantries toward one another are all a facade to hide deep emotional scars that prevent them from truly ever opening themselves up to others. Bear in mind, this anime also includes a lot (and I mean a lot) of sexual assault and even a few depictions of rape, which can feel wholly unnecessary — particularly the last one, given the anime stops before it can do anything with that plot point. Yet, these violations and the ensuing trauma are foundational to the main characters' stories. They're moments from which much larger tales of survival, of finding small joys and reasons to carry on, are built.

What It Adds To The Conversation

The idea of fate and choice is central to the story of "Berserk." Each episode starts with a voiceover intro that talks about man having no control over his own will, and the story told in this adaptation is all about the inevitability and inescapability of fate. You see, the tale begins in media res, showing a hellish world before jumping back in time to show us how we got there. While that device may be silly and unnecessary in many stories (and for most of the season I questioned why it was done that way), it pays off tremendously by the time the final episodes roll.

Why? It's because this framing device forces the audience to question whether the main characters (as well as viewers themselves) are doomed, no matter our intentions. Yet, the show does argue that there is free will, we just tend to overlook or ignore the consequences of our actions in order to fulfill our twisted dreams. This is not so much a story about good versus evil — we don't even get a big bad until the very last episode. Instead, this entire 25-episode show is an endurance test.

We spend the whole season watching how long the members of the Band of the Falcon can go on before they break and give in to despair. That Clive Barker's "Game of Thrones" description wasn't a joke, it truly feels that way, and not just because some of the monsters are clearly inspired by Cenobites. It's because creator Kentaro Miura created a fantasy world twisted to its very core -- one where the biggest powers at the center of the world are driven by pain and suffering, heroic ascends are built on the corpses of allies, and dreams are carved in blood.

Why Non-Anime Fans Should Check It Out

Yes, this is an incomplete adaptation (of a sadly incomplete manga after the death of its creator), but "Berserk" is not only an incredible advertisement for picking up the manga and reading the rest of the story, it is also a fantastic and compelling season of TV in its own right.

This is a work of fantasy with complex, fascinating characters, stunning artwork, a terrific soundtrack, and one of the most shockingly bleak endings in the history of the medium (seriously, "Devilman Crybaby" looks like sunshine and rainbows by comparison). Whether you're here for the "Game of Thrones"-style medieval world of knights, political intrigue and assassination attempts, or the Clive Barker-like hellish landscape of otherworldly horrors messing with humans, or even the dark fantasy of a cruel world that inspired "Dark Souls" and "Attack on Titan," this is a show you need to watch.

Watch this anime if you like: "Attack on Titan," "Dark Souls," "Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Berserk" is streaming on Netflix.

Read this next: 10 Anime Movies That Deserved To Win The Oscar For Best Animated Feature

The post Berserk Is a Bleak Dark Fantasy That Mixes Game of Thrones With Clive Barker appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the "Better Call Saul" series finale.

The series finale of "Better Call Saul," aptly titled "Saul Gone," is an incredible achievement in television that's still being discussed over four months after it aired. The tragedy of Slippin' Jimmy McGill was inevitable, as the prequel/sequel series had its trajectory set from the very first episode. While the transformation of Jimmy into Saul and then into Gene was inevitable, there were character relationships whose fate wasn't set in stone. Enter: Kim Wexler, played to perfection by Rhea Seehorn. Throughout six seasons, Kim's relationship with Jimmy and her eventual involvement in his schemes and deceitful nature made viewers wary of her future.

As stressful as it was to see Kim break bad, viewers were still invested in her relationship with Jimmy. Her character would also be the lynchpin that would lead to the full transformation of Jimmy into Saul Goodman halfway through the shows final season, making their relationship that much more meaningful, as well as Jimmy's acts as Saul Goodman that much more tragic. The criminal lawyer we see throughout "Breaking Bad" is a far cry from the Jimmy we know in "Better Call Saul." He only became such a slimy character because of the hurt he experienced from Kim leaving. Just as Kim's absence would be integral to the series, her reunion with Jimmy at the end would prove just as critical.

An Unpredictably Subtle Ending

Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn broke down the final scene of the series for the February 2023 issue of Empire Magazine and what it meant for the characters to reunite in a post-"Breaking Bad" timeline. One of the first things discussed was the final shot of the series, which was the camera moving around a corner until Jimmy was no longer visible in a prison courtyard. It's a quiet ending for one of the best shows of the year, and Bob Odenkirk didn't see it coming. As he told Empire:

"I would not have predicted it. I would have predicted an ending with more explosions. I'm so glad there weren't. And yet the weird thing about it to me is that it really came from relaxing your grip on the characters."

Throughout "Better Call Saul," the show constantly stressed viewers about the fates of characters not named Jimmy, Gus, or Mike. Whether it was how the series would take Lalo Salamanca out of the picture or if Nacho Varga would get a happy ending (he didn't), there was uncertainty for new characters we'd grown to love over the six seasons. Even to a certain extent, fans were worried about Jimmy. The black-and-white flash-forwards featuring his new identity, Gene, made everyone unsure how his story would truly end.

Key Moments Of Self-Realization

"Better Call Saul" and "Breaking Bad" are wildly different in tone and character development. However, when it came to the end of both series, you can find striking similarities in moments of self-realization from the shows' main characters -- characters who had been willfully ignorant of their dangerous and toxic flaws throughout their respective series. Similar to Walter White's admission in "Felina" that he did what he did because he "liked it," Bob Odenkirk believed the final scene in "Better Call Saul" was all about self-acceptance, as well as being a perfect way to end the series:

"One of the struggles I had, and Rhea [Seehorn] had this too, is that the characters were very emotionally intelligent about almost everybody they interacted with, yet had these blind spots regarding their own behavior. And in the end, the writers granted these characters the self-knowledge that I felt they always had. I thought it was beautiful."

Whereas Walter White died embracing his darker side, Jimmy McGill ended "Better Call Saul" at peace with himself and with Kim Wexler. "And in a weird way, he'd have to count [his relationship with Kim] as a very satisfying relationship to have had in his life. He traded his freedom for peace of mind and peace of heart, and I think that's a fair trade, for sure," Odenkirk noted.

One Last Moment Of Authenticity

The fate of Kim Wexler had been speculated about since "Better Call Saul" began, with viewers unsure if she would meet a grisly fate or somehow get her life ruined by Jimmy/Saul, leading to their separation. As it tuned out, Kim's guilt following the death of Howard Hamlin would lead her to disbar herself so that she could no longer practice law. Her black-and-white flash-forwards painted Kim as a shell of her former self, disappointed in Jimmy and what he had become. Still, Jimmy's last transformation into Saul Goodman would show Kim there's still some good-natured McGill in him. 

Rhea Seehorn talked to Empire about Jimmy and Kim's final scene and how unexpectedly poignant it was. With hardly any dialogue, it was Bob Odenkirk's facial expressions that spoke volumes to Seehorn during filming:

"I hadn't realized the way Bob-as-Jimmy was going to look at me, and it was so arresting. To me, it was so much about him letting her know, 'I'm okay, the best of me that you always saw is alive and well,' and I think she's trying to let him know, 'I see that.' She still loves him."

Jimmy and Kim's relationship is pivotal to the series, so closure is necessary. To Rhea Seehorn, this final scene of the series was one last moment of intimacy and authenticity between the two characters:

"The entire series, these two people had all sorts of different masks they wore out in the world, and they only truly felt seen by each other. That's what that last moment felt like to me."

"Better Call Saul" is an incredible series with stellar character work to the end. It proves a great series doesn't need a loud, violent conclusion like "Breaking Bad." Instead, it chose to stay true to its characters and story, delivering a nuanced and quiet yet deeply emotionally-resonant conclusion.

Read this next: The Moments That Defined TV In 2022

The post Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn Break Down Jimmy and Kim's Final Scene In Better Call Saul appeared first on /Film.

AMD has finally provided a response on the thermal throttling and overheating issues reported for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card.

AMD Asks Users To Contact Its Support Team If They Are Facing Over-heating or Thermal Throttling Issues With The Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Earlier this week, we reported that a few users were facing issues with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, the MBA or reference model in particular. The issues mostly had to do with the graphics card overheating and thermal throttling down to lower clock speeds, resulting in a less-than-desired performance in games.

Since our report, multiple users have shown up who are facing the same issues with their AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference graphics cards. AMD had previously declined to offer an RMA to a user facing the issue, stating that the card hitting 110C Junction temperature was within normal spec however what isn't normal was the lower performance that was a result of those high temps.

PowerColor stepped in a few days ago to help consumers who bought a reference AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card and asked them to provide data regarding the card. Now it looks like AMD is also listening to customers and has provided us with the following statement on the matter

“We are aware that a limited number of users are experiencing unexpected thermal throttling on AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards (reference models made by AMD). Users experiencing unexpected thermal throttling of an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX should contact AMD Support.”

Another user on Reddit stated that AMD was offering a refund for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and not a replacement unit since the MBA variant most likely has limited quantities. It also depends on the region as some get more reference models than others. For example, China got far fewer reference variants than the rest of the world. Now we have yet to see what result comes out after consumers contact customer support but it is good to see that AMD is acknowledging the issue & helping out users who are facing this issue. We will keep you updated once we get more information on the matter.

The post AMD Responds To Radeon RX 7900 XTX Thermal Issues, Asks Users To Contact Support by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

As one step in the development of the Windows 3.x/2.x display driver, I needed to replace a BIOS INT 10h call to set the video mode with a “native” mode set code going directly to the (virtual) hardware registers. One big reason is that the (VBE 2.0) BIOS is limited to a predefined set of resolutions, whereas native mode set code can set more or less any resolution, enabling widescreen resolutions and such.

Replacing the code was not hard (I already had a working and tested mode set code) and it worked in Windows 3.1 and 3.0 straight away. When I got around to testing Windows 2.11, I noticed that although Windows looked fine and mouse worked, the keyboard didn’t seem to be working. Windows was just completely ignoring all keyboard input.

Curiously, the letters I fruitlessly typed in Windows popped up on the DOS command prompt as soon as I quit Windows (which was not hard using a mouse). This indicated that the keyboard input was not exactly lost, but it was not ending up in the right place somehow.

After double and triple checking, I assured myself that yes, using native display mode setting code instead of the BIOS broke the keyboard in Windows 2.11 (but not in Windows 3.x). That was, to put it mildly, not an anticipated side effect. How is that even possible?!

Fortunately I did not have to spend too much time figuring out the problem, but only because I had the Windows 2.11 DDK on hand, including the source code to KEYBOARD.DRV. And soon enough, there I found the following (excerpted) source code:

; ROM BIOS addresses

CrtMode         EQU     449H    ; rom bios data area for screen mode

...

; When running Windows, it can happen that we will be interrupted by a popup
; in text mode that will read keyboard (Business Network). This very
; wierd case is detected by finding the screen in text mode (this is
; quite uncommon when this keyboard driver is activated).
;
ifndef TEST
	; IF you want to test this driver with the OEM keyboard test,
	; TKEYBD.EXE, it must be assembled with the TEST flag set so
	; that this code is NOT executed.
	cmp	byte ptr ds:[CrtMode],4		; text mode?
	jb	jkbi0				; yes, jump to ROM.
endif

The code in the Windows 2.11 keyboard driver checks the CrtMode byte at address 0:449h (current BIOS video mode) and if it’s less than 4, lets the ROM BIOS handle the keyboard input, bypassing Windows keyboard handling.

Said code is a bit sketchy. It does not consider mono mode 7, which is also a text mode. But more importantly, it makes the assumption that Windows must run in a graphics mode (reasonable) and that the BIOS must have been used to set the mode, changing the CrtMode byte to a value 4 or higher (much less reasonable).

Interestingly, this clearly already broke the OEM keyboard test utility TKEYBD.EXE, which presumably in fact ran KEYBOARD.DRV in text mode.

I wondered how this works when Windows 2.11 runs with a Hercules graphics card (HGC), which does not use the BIOS to set the graphics mode (because there is no BIOS support). I could not find any code in the Hercules driver that would touch CrtMode at all. Eventually I realized that the HGC would in fact run in mode 7, so the strange logic in KEYBOARD.DRV would not kick in. Did the Business Network pop-up problem not exist on Hercules cards? Who knows.

At any rate, now I had a good idea how to un-break the keyboard in Windows 2.11 with my display driver. I just added a line of code to write some more or less random value higher than 3 to 0:449h. And sure enough, suddenly the keyboard worked in Windows 2.11!

But that left me with a question what to do about Windows 3.x. Clearly Windows 3.x didn’t need CrtMode to change (at least at first glance). But perhaps some obscure code would benefit if it did?

So I left the code in for all Windows versions. And poof, when Windows 3.1 started, I ended up with a black screen and a non-functional VM. The same happened with Windows 3.0, only not quite, because Windows 3.0 just instantly returned to DOS.

Except for Windows 3.0 in real mode, which worked fine. Then I realized that of course writing to 0:449h is dumb, because it can’t work in protected mode. Instead I needed to write to 40:49h, which works in both real and protected mode.

The excursion to Windows 2.11 KEYBOARD.DRV also allowed me to finally understand one rather strange fragment of code in the Windows 3.1 Video 7 sample driver (in the physical_enable routine) that I previously removed:

        mov     ax,040h                 ; bogus for keyboard !!!
        mov     es,ax
        mov     BYTE PTR es:[49h],06h

This code writes the value 6 into the CrtMode byte. The “bogus for keyboard !!!” comment is not exactly enlightening, to put it mildly. But seeing the KEYBOARD.DRV code, it makes sense that a display driver might need to write something there if it didn’t go through the BIOS to set the Windows graphics mode. In retrospect, perhaps I should not have removed that code…

On the other hand, I could not find any similar logic in the Windows 3.1 driver for the 8514/A, which also does not use the BIOS to set the mode. Which makes me think the issue was really specific to Windows 2.11 (or maybe more generally Windows 2.x).

Indeed checking the KEYBOARD.DRV source code in the Windows 3.1 DDK, one can find the following in the change history:

; 20 apr 89     peterbe         Removed old comments above kbic: about
;                               Business Network and W.1.00 keyboard test.

In other words, the sketchy logic was removed from KEYBOARD.DRV before Windows 3.0 was released.

In a way I was lucky that I didn’t integrate the native mode set code right away, because figuring out why the keyboard does not work in Windows 2.11 would have been massively more difficult.

What’s the moral of the story? Having source code access can save a lot of time and head scratching, and good comments are important. The logic in Windows 2.11 KEYBOARD.DRV is rather strange and extremely non-obvious, but at least the comments explain why it’s there and the reader can understand what’s happening.

On the other hand, the “bogus for keyboard” comment in a display driver is impossible to to understand without context (that only exists well outside of the display driver), and it’s really no better than no comment at all.

The other takeaway is that 16-bit Windows is a house of cards built on a foundation of sand. An innocent change in one place can cause something to break in a seemingly completely unrelated location. Maintaining and debugging such a system is a nightmare. It also demonstrates that a flaky house of cards can still be a major commercial success.

mRNA gave us a breakthrough vaccine with which to fight Covid-19, but it has even greater potential to democratize access to innovative medicines.

NVIDIA DLSS 2.5.1 version debuted in the latest Portal RTX patch released last week. Following the festivities, it has now been found that this latest version of the software doesn't feature any built-in sharpening filter anymore. Advanced users had been using alternative methods (like hex edits or the DLSS SDK .dll, which, however, added a watermark) to fix the oversharpening issues in select games, like Red Dead Redemption 2 or God of War. The problems were most noticeable during motion.

The news was confirmed by NVIDIA's RTX Unreal Engine Evangelist Richard Cowgill (fatheadlifter on Reddit) with the following messages. NVIDIA is apparently recommending that game developers use NVIDIA Image Scaling sharpening going forward.

Yeah, DLSS sharpening is now deprecated in NVIDIA DLSS 2.5.1. We’re recommending devs use NIS (Nvidia image scaler) sharpening instead. NIS has an arguably superior sharpening technique and can also provide a cross-platform, non-RTX hardware fallback for upscaling.

The latest DLSS simply doesn’t use the old DLSS sharpening method anymore. We’re recommending to devs they use NIS sharpening instead when implementing DLSS. This should result in better image quality.

NVIDIA Image Scaling (NIS) was released in November 2021 as an upgrade to the previous image scaling technology. The new algorithm uses a 6-tap filter with 4 directional scaling and adaptive sharpening filters. Scaling and sharpening also happen in a single pass, boosting performance.

NVIDIA Image Scaling works with GPUs from all vendors (including AMD and Intel) and is open source. Game developers interested in adding NIS to their games can download the latest SDK version from GitHub.

If you're interested in checking out the unsharpened upscaling results available with NVIDIA DLSS 2.5.1, you'll have to either download the latest .dll from TechPowerUp and manually inject the file in the game of your choosing or use the handy DLSS Swapper tool from Australian coder Brad Moore.

The post NVIDIA DLSS 2.5.1 Disables Built-In Sharpening; NVIDIA Tells Developers to Use NIS Sharpening Going Forward by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.

PC cases come in all shapes and sizes but there are three main form factors that take up the bulk of the market: full-sized ATX, microATX, and mini-ITX. We've added a ton of full-tower and mid-tower cases in some of our collection articles including the best PC cases, best PC cases for gamers, and more. In this article, we're going to take a look at a dedicated list of the best mini-ITX PC cases, which are smaller than the rest of the pack. A mini-ITX PC is often considered the best option for those who are working with small desk spaces. Although most mini-ITX cases are focused on size first and performance second, there are some cases out there that can even support the best CPUs and fastest GPUs available.

2022 is almost over, so we’ve decided to share with you the games that amazed us with their graphics. The following games have the best graphics, and PC gamers can use them to impress their friends. Do note that we won’t be focusing on overall optimization here. The following list is also in random order. … Continue reading DSOGaming’s Best PC Game Graphics of 2022 →

The post DSOGaming’s Best PC Game Graphics of 2022 appeared first on DSOGaming.

The origins of Mike Judge's "King of the Hill" would make its protagonist Hank Hill proud. The satirical animated series introduced us to a loveable collection of rednecks in Arlen, Texas. It debuted on Fox in 1997 and ran for 13 seasons. The timing of its arrival was impeccable. As we rushed toward the new millennium in the late 1990s, the Internet, cell phones, and satellite TV would change the face of mass communication. The tragedy of 9/11 and a seemingly unending war in the Middle East were right around the bend. Old ideals were giving way to a new generation.

The world was about to change significantly, and it was surprisingly calming to watch Texas everyman Hank Hill grapple with those changes along with us. As a good-hearted baby boomer with often outdated values, he was a character that Gen X could laugh at — and eventually with — as we inched closer to becoming Hank Hill ourselves. His desire for simpler times would soon become our collective longing.

But Judge's idea for the series didn't spawn from a major social shift in the 1990s. In typical Hank Hill fashion, it was much simpler than that.

'Two Bubbas Sitting Around Drinking Beer'

Mike Judge had the basic concept for "King of the Hill" from the time he was in college, where he'd act out what would eventually become parts of the show with a friend. "I think as far back as in college a good friend of mine and I used to sort of do a bit of like two bubba's sitting around drinking beer and talking about what's in the news or whatever," Judge said in a 2012 interview with IGN.

But the inspiration for the show's characters might have occurred even earlier. It was Judge's work as a paper boy that exposed him to people that would eventually become the animated residents of Arlen. Judge said:

"I had a paper route that was sort of in a blue-collar neighborhood with lots of Texas transplants, so early on I had these kinds of characters around me. But I think when I lived north of Dallas I had really a pretty good neighborhood; everyone took care of each other, helped out with each other's lawns."

The animator explained that it all came together when drawing a panel cartoon. "I just had this image of just four guys with beers standing out in front of the fence, kind of like I used to see when I'd look out my kitchen window," Judge said. "And I just drew them all saying, 'Yep, yep, yep.' That's still basically the drawing you see at the beginning of the show, is those four guys and their beers. That was really the seed of the idea."

It was clear from early on that Judge had a talent for creating real people in an otherwise fabricated world.

Judge's Characters Are All Of Us

From the beginning, Milke Judge had the ability to reflect on what was happening in the cultural zeitgeist through his characters. The animator got his break in 1993 with the massively popular MTV series "Beavis and Butt-Head." The series followed the adventures of two latchkey juvenile delinquents who formed their worldview by watching television. There's a sad irony that much of what fills today's MTV airwaves is the very thing Beavis and Butthead critiqued.

Roger Ebert noted Judge's talent for character development with his review of "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America." The critic wrote:

"Mike Judge's characters reflect parts of the society that produced them. To study 'Beavis and Butt-Head' is to learn about a culture of narcissism, alienation, functional illiteracy, instant gratification, and television zombiehood."

With "King of the Hill," Judge used the fish-out-of-water trope to create what The Atlantic claimed appealed to conservatives and liberals alike, and one of the last to do so. Film and television often serve as a reflection of our fears and worries, but usually in the form of horror or suspense. With "King of the Hill" Mike Judge created a satirical take on a rapidly changing society using Hank Hill as an effective stand-in for all of us.

What might Hank Hill think of everything that's happened in the decade since the show ended, I wonder? I echo his season 4 words of wisdom to his son: "Bobby, some things are like a tire fire. Trying to put it out only makes it worse. You just gotta grab a beer and let it burn."

Read this next: The 10 Best South Park Episodes No One Remembers

The post How A Paper Route And Couple Of Beers Helped Inspire King Of The Hill appeared first on /Film.

Those living in Los Angeles in 1990 may remember hearing Courtney Love's voice blasting from radios tuned to KROQ as she belted aggressive punk-ish lyrics as the frontwoman of her band Hole. Legendary local DJ Rodney Bingenheimer was reportedly hounded by a young Love at the restaurant where he had breakfast, and she eventually convinced him to air Hole's debut single, a song with a decidedly inappropriate title. Hole's first record "Pretty on the Inside" was released in 1991, and Love became a celebrity in the growing grunge scene. In 1992, Love married superstar Kurt Cobain, frontman of Nirvana, and the couple instantly became icons of anti-commercial 1990s disaffected youth. Their celebrity, however, paired with unfair public images and a tragic addiction to heroin, affected the couple's mental health, and Cobain died by suicide in 1994.

Love continued to work, however. Hole's 1995 record "Live Through This" was widely acclaimed, and the rocker moved to acting in 1996 with a lauded performance in Miloš Forman's biographical film "The People vs. Larry Flynt." It was a whirlwind of a decade for Love, and she had seemingly come out on the other side intact. 

In 1999, on an acting roll, Love was briefly hired to play the character of Marla in David Fincher's MTV-inflected, antipop drama "Fight Club." Fans of the film know that Helena Bonham Carter would appear as Marla in the final film. According to a recent interview with Marc Maron, on the December 26 episode of his podcast "WTF with Marc Maron," Love said that she was fired from "Fight Club" after she, in her words, "went nuclear" on her co-star, Brad Pitt, when he suggested he play Cobain in an upcoming fictionalized biopic directed by Gus Van Sant. 

I Don't Do 'Faust'

1999, Courtney Love seemed to feel, was too soon for a biopic about Kurt Cobain. It's also a matter of record — recorded in Cobain's own voice in A.J. Schnack's 2006 documentary "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" — that the singer felt very strongly about "selling out" and having his image used for crass, commercial purposes. Recall, this is the man who wore a "Corporate magazines still suck" t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone. Ironically, one can buy such a t-shirt online. 

According to Love, when Brad Pitt and Gus Van Sant approached her about a scripted Cobain biopic, she had nothing but vitriol. She said: 

"I wouldn't let Brad play Kurt. I went nuclear. I don't do 'Faust.' 'Who the f*** do you think are? [...] I don't know if I trust you and I don't know that your movies are for profit. They're really good social justice movies, but ... if you don't get me, you kind of don't get Kurt, and I don't feel like you do, Brad.'"

Love says that she was fired from "Fight Club" shortly after the confrontation, feeling that her rejection led directly to her being released. Helena Bonham Carter was brought in as her replacement. Most of Marla's scenes in "Fight Club" would have been with Pitt or with Love's "The People vs. Larry Flynt" co-star Edward Norton whom she was also dating at the time. There was, it seems, a lot of tension on the set after Pitt's proposal regardless. Norton was the one who broke the news to her. 

In 1999, Love would also appear in the freewheeling indie comedy "200 Cigarettes" and another Miloš Forman biography "Man on the Moon," a celebrated film about Andy Kaufman.

Last Days

Gus Van Sant would eventually, in 2005, direct a slow-paced realist drama called "Last Days" that was about a very Cobain-like musician named Blake (Michael Pitt, no relation). Van Sant's movie was nearly dialogue-free and featured a lot of long, sustained takes of people walking down hallways. It was the third part of a stylistic trilogy of films that Van Sant would make about real-life tragedies, but with a lot of the details changed. His 2002 film "Gerry" was about a murder in a desert, and his 2004 film "Elephant" was about a school shooting. "Last Days," while not explicitly about Cobain, might be as close as audiences might come to an actual Cobain biopic. 

"Last Days," Courtney Love said to Marc Maron, wasn't the project that she was approached about. Indeed, Love had nothing to do with "Last Days." Actress Asia Argento played what might be considered the Courtney Love analog in "Last Days," but Argento has gone on record to say that her character was meant to be strikingly different from Love. 

Hole's last record, "Nobody's Daughter" was released in 2010. Love, now 58, seems to have moved into a life of calm and music. She toured with Lana Del Rey and acted in a film called "The Long Home" directed by James Franco. However, because of sexual misconduct allegations against Franco, the film remained unreleased. 

Love's daughter with Cobain, Frances Bean, currently owns the rights to her father's likeness. There have been no scripted Kurt Cobain biopics and it's likely there never will be. Corporate films still suck. 

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Courtney Love Says She Was Fired from Fight Club Because She Didn't Want Brad Pitt Playing Kurt Cobain appeared first on /Film.

PCem
PCem という、CPU等を忠実にエミュレーションできるソフトを見つけたので試してみた。


だが、なぜか、 Setup is starting Windows 2000でフリーズしてしまう。
F5オプションでACPIを無効にしたりしても効果なし

86box\roms\video\voodoo のフォルダの中身を
roms\voodoo3_3000 にリネームしてコピーしたところ



グラフィックカードに 3DFX Voodoo3 3000が選べるようになった。


なぜか、これだけで先にすすめるようになった。



忠実にエミュレーションするせいか滅茶苦茶遅い。