July 3rd 2015 - The WAN Show Document

[LinusTech]

 

Soundcloud Link: https://soundcloud.com/thewanshow/the-wan-show-mantle-is-dead-called-it-and-arkham-knight-always-sucked-july-3-2015

 

Main News Topics

AMD has ceased Mantle optimisation.

Source 1: linustechtips.com - amd has officially deprecated mantle OP: Kurahk7

Source 2: anandtech.com/show/9390/the-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review

Source 3: anandtech.com/show/9390/the-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review/12

• “AMD has confirmed that while they are not outright dropping Mantle support, they have ceased all further Mantle optimization.”

• The Mantle driver has not been optimized at all for GCN 1.2; R9 Fury X, R9 285, R9 380, and the Carrizo APU.

• “Mantle is essentially deprecated at this point, and while AMD isn’t going out of their way to break backwards compatibility they aren’t going to put resources into helping it either.”

Sony launches First Flight crowd-funding site - Fund Sony products and games!

Source 1: linustechtips.com - sony launches first flight crowd fundin OP: Goodbytes

Source 2: bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2015/07/01/sony-first-flight/1

Product Link: https://first-flight.sony.com/pj/2/HUIS%20REMOTE%20CONTROLLER

• Available exclusively in Japan. No plans to launch elsewhere.

• First Flight's initial campaign is for a customisable remote control based on a low-power electrophoretic e-paper display.

• Huis offers to ability to learn codes from various remote controls - including from non-Sony products - in order to replace multiple remotes with a single unit.

• Huis remote needs to raise ¥5 million (around £26,000) in the next 50 days in order to reach production

• Huis would join other Sony products that have been produced as a result of crowd-funding campaigns including the FES smartwatch and MESH modular electronics kit.

NVidia Unveils plans for GTX 950-X Range of GPU's

Source 1: linustechtips.com - nvidia unveils plans for gtx 950 x ra OP: Starcoaster

Source 2: kitguru.net - nvidia preps low cost geforce gtx 950 series graphics

• GTX 950 and GTX 950 Ti graphics adapters will be based on the GM206-250.

• Supports:

  • DirectX 12.1

  • OpenGL 4.3

  • OpenCL 1.1

  • H.265 (HEVC) encoding and decoding

  • Fully compatible with HDCP 2.2 content protection over HDMI 2.0.

• GTX 950 and 950 Ti graphics adapters will replace the company’s GeForce GTX 750 and 750 Ti, respectively. It is logical to expect the new boards to cost less than $150.

Star Marine delayed for the foreseeable future.

Source 1: linustechtips.com - star citizen fps module delayed for the fo OP: Nexxus

Source 2: robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14803-Letter-From-The-Chairman

Source 3: pcgamer.com - star citizen fps module is delayed for the foreseeable

Source 4: pcgamer.com/star-citizens-fps-module-is-called-star-marine/

• Star citizen FPS module is called: "Star Marine."

• We initially planned to release the FPS module, which we are calling Star Marine, shortly after PAX East in April. We demonstrated a build of the module at the backer event that ran fairly well.

• The most significant technical hurdle faced today is the networking backend.

• Needed to develop a Generic Instance Manager (GIM) and rewriting both the Matchmaker and (for the larger project) the game Launcher from scratch.

  • The GIM allocates and recycles game servers at a much faster rate and in a more reliable way than before, helping to get players into the action more quickly and keeping them in their games with less incident.

• One of the biggest non-technical issues is getting the visuals right.

• Only 15% of the team has been working on Star Marine; it’s just been the major focus because it was the next public release.

• RSI are going to investigate releasing a build with Star Marine disabled that would allow you to experience some of the changes and updates we’ve made over the last few months to the core code base.

WB knew Arkham Knight PC was a mess months ago

Source 1: linustechtips.com - wb knew arkham knight pc was a me OP: Master Disaster

Source 2: kotaku.com - sources warner bros knew that arkham knight pc was a 17

• “I will say that it’s pretty rich for WB to act like they had no idea the game was in such a horrible state,” said one quality assurance tester who worked on the game for years. “It’s been like this for months and all the problems we see now were the exact same, unchanged, almost a year ago.”

• Allegedly Warner Bros. was aware of the many issues facing Arkham Knight on PC and that the publisher chose to ship the game regardless, not to maniacally screw over customers—but because they believed it was good enough.

• It is costing WB (the steam fee) every time you refund.

• Steam Refund Statement:

  • We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards. We greatly value our customers and know that while there are a significant amount of players who are enjoying the game on PC, we want to do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall.

• Since then, a minor patch was released for the PC version that addressed some crashing bugs, introduced rain effects, and fixed a few other issues.

• As of right now, it’s unclear when it will go on sale again.

Retail AMD Fury X Sound Testing - Pump Whine Investigation by PCPerspective

Source 1: linustechtips.com - retail amd fury x sound testing pump OP: Big Stroonz

Source 2: linustechtips.com - 395543 fury x noise problem and so it continues

Source 3: reddit.com - anyones amd r9 fury x sound like mine link here

Source 4: pcper.com - Retail AMD Fury X Sound Testing Pump Whine Investigation

Source 5: community.amd.com/thread/183409

Source 6: reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3bbenq/fury_x_owners_how_is_your_performance

Source 7: reddit.com - anyone got coil whinebuzzing noise in their fury x

Source 8: forums.anandtech.com - showpost.php?s=9236cb74902e646d5c19e5ea588b74

Source 9: forums.anandtech.com - showpost.php?s=457cd00d38a211191c6a9e81a27161

• Fury X produced a constant unique noise from the pump.

  • Similar to an old CRT that is left powered on without input.

• AMD told the media the issue had been fixed.

• PCPer bought 2 extra cards and both of the retail AMD Radeon R9 Fury X cards that arrived in their offices exhibited 'worse' noise, in the form of both whining and buzzing, compared to their review sample.

• For all intents and purposes, both the AMD Fury X graphics cards and the R9 295X2 run at the same sound levels and sound profiles in idle as they do under a full gaming load.

• currently selling and shipping AMD Radeon R9 Fury X cards do not include any kind of fix for the pump whine

• Fury X high frequency sound from the Fury X cards is constant, even when idle and in Windows.

• Fury X cards is very different than the sounds you are used to seeing associated with current flagship graphics cards. Even though the NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti reference cooler is louder than the Fury X under a gaming load, the high frequency of the sounds we are hearing on the Fury X make it more annoying and grating

IPv4 Internet address waiting list

Source 1: linustechtips.com - ipv4 internet address out of stock OP: Jos

• There is now a waiting list for IPv4 addresses.

• On Wednesday, for the first time, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) had to tell an applicant for new Internet addresses to wait.

• There are only about 150,000 addresses left in the pool at ARIN, one of 5 pools worldwide.

• Some may get returned if an address holder goes out of business or fails to pay its dues, and there will be a few more distributions from a global pool run by ICANN.

• For now, getting waitlisted is mostly a problem for bigger entities.

• The blocks left in ARIN’s free pool now are relatively small, with 512 addresses or less.

• IPv6 released in 1998.

Windows 10 will be "rolling out in waves", not everyone will get it on launch date

Source 1: linustechtips.com - windows 10 will be rolling out in waves no OP: Bouzoo

Source 2: blogs.windows.com

• Starting on July 29, MS will start rolling out Windows 10 to Windows Insiders.

• Then they will start notifying reserved systems in waves, slowly scaling up after July 29th.

• Each day of the roll-out, they will listen, learn and update the experience for all Windows 10 users.

• If you reserved your copy of Windows 10, MS will notify you once their compatibility work confirms you will have a good experience, and Windows 10 has been downloaded on your system.

Plex forums compromised - hackers gained IP addresses, passwords, and more

Source 1: linustechtips.com - plex forums compromised hackers gaine OP: Topwargamer

Source 2: droid-life.com - plex forums and blog hacked user credit card data s

• The hacker could access IP addresses of users, private messages, email addresses, and encrypted forum passwords.

• Allowed a hacker to access its forum and blog server.

• Plex states that user credit card data is not stored on their servers

• All Plex needs you to do is change your password

Reddit Drama

Source 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop - Outline Story

Source 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop - Initial Statement

Source 2: https://www.reddit.com - IAMA Mod Statment

Source 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0hcz/welcome_back/

Source 4: https://www.change.org

• At 5pm UTC 02/Jul/2015 the sub-reddit /r/IAMA (a default subreddit) was made private.

  • This means no-one could view content on the subreddit.

  • The following sub-reddits followed suit: https://np.reddit.com/r/GoldTesting/comments/3bypzz/amageddon_tracking/

  • Some subreddits of note: /r/AskReddit, /r/funny, /r/Books, /r/science, /r/Music, /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/Art, /r/videos, /r/gadgets, /r/todayilearned, /r/Documentaries, /r/LifeProTips, /r/jokes, /r/pics, /r/Dataisbeautiful, and /r/movies

• /r/IAMA mod ‘Victoria’ was unexpectedly let go from her position with Reddit.

• /r/IAMA mods were not notified of the move.

• The admins didn't realize how much /r/IAMA mods relied on Victoria.

• /r/IAMA mod /u/karmanaut: “We've had situations where agents or others have tried to do an AMA as their client, and Victoria shut that shit down immediately.”

• /r/IAMA was made public again.

• The event spoke to a bigger issue the mods have been dealing with for a long time; this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

  • Mods have been getting increasingly upset over the admins not keeping them or the users in the loop as much as the mods believe they should have.

  • Going forward, they hope to get a better relationship with the admins

iPhone 6S leaks - exterior is identical to the 6

Source 1: linustechtips.com/iphone-6s-leaks… OP: Nineshadow

Source 2: 9to5mac.com/revealed-iphone-6s-will-look…

• Apple is preparing the S for Fall 2015

• preserves the exterior design of 6 (same thickness/width)

• the space grey is even the light grey we saw on the 6, not the dark grey seen on the Watch

• we have yet to see the 6S Plus body, so there is a potential for more significant changes on that model

• new mounting points on the interior for the new logic board

• no dual-lens camera on the 6S (was rumored before)

• antenna lines are still there even though Apple recently applied for a patent on a technique to hide them - perhaps something we will see on the 7

• same connectors, speakers, microphones

• more to come soon on the internals…

Facebook set to become a “serious YouTube competitor”

Source 1: linustechtips.com/facebook-becomes… OP: jos

Source 2: recode.net/youtube-beware-facebook…

• Facebook set to start sharing ad revenue with content creators

• currently offering to creators like “NBA, Fox Sports, and Funny or Die”

• set to begin this Fall

• first time Facebook has done a rev share for video ads

• going to run the same revenue split as YouTube (55/45)

• Facebook claims they can get more eyeballs than YouTube by being a social network first and video platform second

• “those people don’t need to be following your Facebook page either.”

 

Rapid Fire News Topics

MasterCard Selfie Pay

Source 1: linustechtips.com/mastercard-selfi-pay… OP: jos

Source 2: money.cnn.com/mastercard-facial…

• set to start “experimenting with the new program” in the Fall

• “The new generation, which is into selfies… I think they’ll find it cool. They’ll embrace it,” said Ajay Bhalla of MasterCard

• need to have the MasterCard app to use the feature

• push notification will ask you for authorization after you pay for something

• can choose between fingerprint and facial recognition

• facial recognition requires you to blink once, which would prevent a thief from using a picture to fool the app

• some are saying this is “awful” from a privacy standpoint, even though Mastercard claims they are only holding 1’s and 0’s, not photos or fingerprints

HTML5 Chat is live on Twitch.tv

Source 1: linustechtips.com/html5-chat-is-live… OP: nixter1029

Source 2: blog.twitch.tv/html5-chat-is-live

• kicked off on June 30

• big upgrade over previous flash-based chat

• chat loads nearly 4x faster

• chat uses fewer CPU resources

• nothing needed to upgrade - automatically enabled if you’re using a Websocket-capable browser

[Goodman2265]

Linus, Please praise meh R9 270 thats fully OC like you told me to on the video

[ZetZet]

Titles in comic sans, so stylish.

[Uwillparish]

@LinusTech You seem really to dont care about reddit, come on man! its important 

[The Knome]

FIRE POLE!!!!!
OK, if we cannot have a fire pole what about a twisty slide in the office?

[Guest]

The thing that was wrong with your hypothetical repetitive strain firepole scenario, Linus, is that the rep would be too busy running up the stairs and sliding down the pole again and again to listen to anyone.

[Xeekei]

Good thing Mantle is dead. Now we can hope Apple's Metal and Microsoft's DirectX will die, so we all can get Vulkan on all platforms.

[sunil6512]

#FIREPOLE 

[Santa 009]

Wasn't sure where to respond as it never was made clear appart from "the forum" (I looked around for an existing thread but coulkd not find one)

 

In regards to your LACP problem.

I've always been told that LACP MUST be setup through a switch that supports it, it CANNOT be a dumb switch.
I'm very scepticle about anyone that has said this works with a dumb switch as it cannot and usually results in ports being inactive.

Smart switches are not very expensive especially 8 ports, they go for about $100,
I've used a entry level D-Link DGS-1100-08 and it was pretty easy to setup once you find the setting.

But like i said, I've always been told both the SWITCH and the NIC need to support the protocol.
(not meaning to sound like a 'douche' but i've been told by multiple CCIE + CCNP's that this is the case).

Your position plus my past problems have pointed to this being correct too.

 

[Bicketybam]

If you to get a RED "first" shirt, just don't go on any Away missions....  

[~Vengeance]

Just thought I would tell you I got into a similar situation trying to set up link aggregation between two quad NICs on my FreeNAS box; it won't work on a dumb switch. Just save yourself some hassle and get yourself a smart switch. 

[Trik'Stari]

I agree with Linus.

 

Networking is a giant pile of shit.

[popman]

Have you considered uploading to a site with niconico douga style comments?

 

Having video comments be tied to a specific time in the video could be really useful for engagement info.

[EricX2]

They should just go to a few fire stations, record them going down the firepole, and have that be part of the new intro for tech quickie.

[mharsch]

Networking ProTips for @LinusTech (NIC Teaming, Link Aggregation, Load Balancing, and SMB Multi Channel -- Oh My!)

 

TL;DR

Forget about NIC Teaming / Link Aggregation (LACP).  Configure each physical interface with it's own IP address (on the same subnet) and allow SMB Multi Channel to do it's multiple (TCP) connection thing.

 

I enjoyed your rant about networking -- sorry to hear SMB multi channel isn't working for you.  Here is some background context to help explain why (I think) you're not able to exceed one link throughput for your file transfer test.

 

Disclaimer: I don't have first hand experience with SMB 3.0 multi channel, but I have a strong background in enterprise networking including working on the test team for a large NAS product that featured support for LACP as well as IP-based failover mechanisms.  My suggestions below are based on how I guess SMB 3.0 works.

 

Load Balancing strategies at layer 2 (Ethernet) have historically been very simplistic in the way they work, and they all relied on a large number of clients (different MAC addresses, IP addresses, or TCP ports) connecting to the server so they had some distribution that could be deterministically spread across the available interfaces.  This works ok in the client-server case where there are many clients connecting to one server but doesn't help the case of one fast client connecting to one fast server (the conversation will always take the same path through the trunk).  Moreover, the server can't control (by itself) which interfaces will be used for incoming traffic (only which interfaces it uses to send out traffic).  For both sides of the 'trunk' to load-balance, the switch must be involved (hence LACP).

 

A brief read-through of the SMB 3.0 multi channel feature seems to indicate that by using multiple TCP connections (to separate IPs, each on their own interface), the protocol can achieve higher aggregate throughput than a single link.  The documentation claims to support lots of variations on this theme, including support for 'NIC Teaming' aka Link Aggregation (with or without LACP), however - it's unclear if the multi channel part of the system (layers 3/4) can actually make use of all those aggregated links (and I strongly suspect it can't).  Usually when you configure 'Link Aggregation' on the host, you specify 2 or more physical links to form a single logical interface (aka Team aka Aggregation).  You then assign one IP address to this group.  The problem (I'm guessing) is that the SMB part of the stack sees the 1 IP address and interprets that as 1 link and doesn't attempt to do it's multi-channel thing.

 

So, to summarize:

- Layer 2 link aggregation only provides a benefit in 1-to-many topologies

- LACP requires switch support (smart switch) to distribute load from many clients to a multi-homed server

- SMB 3.0 multi channel is a different thing than layer 2 stuff, and works by making multiple TCP connections to different IP addresses on different NICs

- by configuring layer 2 aggregations and only presenting those logical interfaces to higher layers, you're effectively reducing the number of interfaces that SMB thinks it has

 

So, my suggestion would be to abandon all the layer 2 stuff (teaming, LACP, aggregations) and configure each physical interface with it's own IP address on the subnet (on both server and client).  This is the simplest config that SMB multi channel claims to support and it has the added benefit of not requiring any switch-side support.  

 

Good Luck.

[Donk Quixote]

I will not be watching videos on Facebook much.  There are a lot of political type videos that I don't others to know I watch.  There are people who I follow on YouTube that I don't want my Facebook connections to know I follow.  Entertainment, news, and person/family videos are one thing, but anything else Facebook would be horrible for.  Sticking with YouTube is just much easier.

 

On the same line of reasoning what the Gmail/YouTube/Google+ does much better than Facebook is it allows you to switch profiles so much easier.  That way you can set up your kinda public face, then set up your anonymous deviant hentai aficionado profile and switch between the two.

 

The only reason I'll never watch Linus Tech Tips videos on Vessel is the inability to increase the playback speed, same thing with Facebook videos.

[Markmjb]

There were so many segue's  in this show, if you spelled it the wrong way, you could give everyone in canada one .

10/10 would watch again

[fwdkiller]

Good thing Mantle is dead. Now we can hope Apple's Metal and Microsoft's DirectX will die, so we all can get Vulkan on all platforms.

I don't want vulkan you can keep it on the amd pos side.

[max666]

I want to prefix that I know squat about Link Aggregation (LACP), but from reading trough the wiki article I stumbled over this section:

 

Use on network interface cards

NICs trunked together can also provide network links beyond the throughput of any one single NIC. For example, this allows a central file server to establish an aggregate 2-gigabit connection using two 1-gigabit NICs teamed together. Note the data signaling rate will still be 1Gbit/s, which can be misleading depending on methodologies used to test throughput after link aggregation is employed.

 

Which surprises me. I thought if you aggregate at layer 2 then everything that accesses the link would just see one channel, especially since it only has a single IP address. I mean I would understand this behaviour if you aggregate at layer 3.

And regarding @mharsch suggestion to use SMB 3 I want to note that Windows 7 doesn't support SMB 3

[Stefken89]

@LinusTech

On the topic of Facebook video versus youtube, yes you can search for a video and watch on youtube, but the reason why Facebook says you don't have to like a page to view the videos is that the video appears on your actual timeline without searching for it when a friend shares a video (that's expected), but also when they like our reply to a video!

If you combine that with autoplay-muted + the fact that people will watch a video faster when a friend liked it or commented on it, ... = constant new audience without effort from the creator!

[YoNiS]

about the trunking/link aggregation problem

 

-You wont be able to use more than a single link bandwidth within a single communication (same origin-destination and port).