These tests actually show that Navi cards aren't as factory overvolted as Vega and Polaris cards were. It also looks like AMD went for a more nvidia-like approach with total board power, with much tighter control.
As far as we know, Navi was the architecture which "stole" resources from Vega during their developement and it's almost sure it will go inside new consoles.
Moreover, IIRC, RTG staff has specified that Vega didn't get wider because of time/resources constraint, thus the limit to 4 geometry engines/64 ROPs. GCN has always been front end limited, if "big Navi" can get to 8 geometry engines it could probably match or surpass Radeon VII with less CUs.
Hopefully all those Vega features that didn't actually get activated/used will make their way inside Navi (in a functional way): this way the last iteration of GCN could have the largest jump in performance since the architecture was launched, paving the way to the supposed SuperSIMD stuff coming after Navi.
Not very impressed since the power consumption will still be high and both price and availability poor, but I'm very interested in seeing what a GCN card will do with - finally - 128 ROPs
And I hope the "retooling" applied to Vega 7 involves all those features disabled on the original Vega
2K, 4K and 8K are the cinematograhic versions of, respectively, 1080p, 2160p and 4320p. 2K for example is 2048 pixel wide, making 4K and 8K names actually correct at 4096 and 8192 pixels of width.
16:9 resolutions have progressively got more complicated names, from a simple HD to Full HD, Wide Quad HD, Ultra HD. From 5K on the scheme has seemingly been dropped for a simpler "5K UHD" or "8K UHD"
Polaris, Vega and Navi (epsilon Cassiopeiae) are much hotter stars than the Sun. Arctrurus, on the other hand, is rather cold at about 4300K and it doesn't even have a corona.
Polaris, Vega and Navi (epsilon Cassiopeiae) are much hotter stars than the Sun. Arctrurus, on the other hand, is rather cold at about 4300K and it doesn't even have a corona.
Microsoft will soon release a new Windows 10 update. This new update is called April Update. This new version of Windows 10 which was code name Redstone 4 will bring you to version 1803 Build 17134.
Download:
It will start coming out through Windows 10 Update starting May 8.
If you want to get it now:
You can use Microsoft Download Assistance: (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 - Pick "Update Now")
You can use Media Creation Tool: (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 - Pick "Download tool now")
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What’s New?
The Exciting Stuff:
Fluent Design
Pushing forward with resigning and polishing the user interface of Windows 10, Microosft continues the implementation of the Fluent design language. Previously we only had a hint of it, but now it is more prominent, where you have glass frosted effect on the start menu, task bar, calendar (from the clock on the task bar), and so on. There is also a reveal effect which I can’t show properly via screen shots, but you’ll notice when you get the build. Basically, button edges reveal itself around the cursor. It is on everything UWP, so basically the Settings panels, Start menu, and so on.
Nearby Share
With Nearby Share enabled on your PC (Bluetooth required) from the Action Center, you can send via the Share menu a link or file to a PC near you. Simply hit the Share button and pick the PC from the list, and boom that selected PC will get it. The option is also found in the right-click menu when you right-click on a file on your system. This is a great way to send something to someone next to you without the need to use a USB flash
Quick Bluetooth Pairing
Windows 10 will now show a notification when it detects a Bluetooth device that is trying to be paired to, and from a quick press to the 'Connect' button on the notification, it will connect to it as expected. No need to go through the Settings panels, navigate to Devices, pick add Bluetooth, pick the type of Bluetooth devices it is, and wait for Windows to search for it. This should make connecting to your Bluetooth device for the first time much simpler.
Joining Google, Microsoft introduces Progressive Web Apps (PWA) support. PWA are web apps, but is a big step forwards compared to the old web apps models. It is more than just a direct link in a web browser. The idea of PWA is to allow developers to make 1 app and be availible on all platform without having any limitations as if it were be a standard dedicated app with the same level of responsiveness, at least that is the idea.
To achieve this goal, PWA supports:
Offline mode (no internet connection to access the app and view its content.. of course the content won't be updated if it never has internet connectivity)
Notification support. It can send notification even if the app is running on the background.
Access sensor (assuming you give it permission)
Access to Microphone and Webcam (permission required)
Access to Contacts and other information (permission required)
Access to Share menu
Installable like normal apps
Twitter is the first big app working on a PWA version for Windows 10. It will be available in the Store app soon. Please note that currently, Twitter app that is available now, is not the PWA version. It is expected that this same app, once complete, will be available on Android for those with the supported version, and replace the dedicated app.
Multi-GPU performance control on a per game/app basis.
If your system has a system with 2 non-identical GPUs, say a laptop with an Intel integrated graphics and a dedicated one, or external GPU (yes, it supports that) that you plug. You can tell Windows which graphics card to use game or application to use, for both UWP games/apps and Win32 games/programs. The option is found under Settings > Display > Graphics settings (bottom of the page). All you have to do, is pick if you want to add a “Classic app” (standard Win32 game or application) or “Universal app” (a UWP), then pick on Browse, pick your executable file (for Universal apps, you’ll have a list of install UWP apps on your system instead), pick it, and add it. Now you can select the game or application in question, and select “Options”, and now you can pick which GPU you want it to use.
If you have the option in the Nvidia and AMD driver panel, those will remain and still works, however the Windows one (if defined) will take precedent. This was added to have an easier time in select UWP apps, and have a central, common location to set this up no matter the GPU setup you have.
Activity History (Timeline) in Task View
Task View now feature a new feature called: Timeline. When you Win+Tab or hit the Task View button, you now not only get the currently running program you can switch as normal, but also past programs used (up to the past 30 days). Picking one of the past programs will open program (if it is not running already) and load the project file that was worked on, or what article you were viewing last, if it is something like the News app. It can even resume where you left off if the program supports that.
Timeline also sync between your PCs running Windows 10 with this new update. You can add multiple accounts too if you want or use a different account than the one you are using now. Up to you. You can also disable it as well. You can also clear the history, and remove an individual app, and you can set it to keep all activity to this PC only, and not sync it to MS cloud to reach your other systems.
A search button at the top right is there to allow you to search for an app in your activity history/timeline.
DPI scaling improvements
A new setting called “Fix scaling for apps” found under Settings > System > Display > Advanced scaling, can be enabled, to give you pop-up notification on apps that are already opened when you do a display scaring change (which can occur when you do a remote desktop on a PC, or change the display scaling on the fly without logging out and back in), which detects blurry apps and can restart the app in such a way to appear no more blurry
Notification that will show will look like this:
Another feature added to help improve DPI scaling of apps, is an option to override defined global settings on a per app basis. Simply go to the properties of a program executable or its shortcuts. Then under “Compatibility” tab, hit the “Change High DPI Settings” button, and in this panel you’ll find an option to override the scaring for that specific application.
Per application audio output and input
You can now set each program you have the audio source you want to use coming in and out of your system. So, if you have 2x sound card, and you want 1 app to use Sound card 1 and the other sound card 2, but you want both to use the same microphone. Well, you now can! A better example, is that you have a USB headset and speakers, and you can have your games go through your USB headset, but use your Blue Yeti Microsoft instead of the one from your headset, and all other programs use your speakers of your system. The list shows you currently running programs that outputted audio or registered itself to output audio. The app/game will disappear once it is closed, but the settings is kept in memory.
Swipe to type on the large keyboard layout
The on-screen touch keyboard of Windows now supports shape-writing. Now you can swipe your finger on letters as you do with WordFlow or Swift Keyboard on your mobile device, to type. This features was only available on the tiny thumb keyboard, now it is available on the big one.
More privacy options
New options for Windows
Can now give permission rights to apps for access to the Picture, Video and Document folder. By default, apps no longer have access to these folders.
Delete diagnostic data collected. You can now delete diagnostic data collected within Windows at the press of a button. The new option is found under Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
What else has changed:
Windows Update.
o Not going to sleep on you anymore. When Windows Update kicks in, and you are away, you will no longer need to fear that your system will go to sleep by itself, only to resume, and see that the system is updating (and have the update be corrupted). Windows will disable Sleep on idle timeout during this time. Please note that you can manually sleep your system at this time. It will not prevent this. This only occurs when you leave your system idle. Once the update is complete the computer will go to sleep as normal when idle after the specified time.
o Reduce downtime. Microsoft has re-worked partially the Windows update process to reduce system downtime to apply an update. Once you have the Spring Creator Update, in the future, the next OS update will be faster. Basically, Microsoft was able to move operations it does during the update process from the actual update phase to the “installing update” phase while being in Windows. This means that the time the system need to restart to apply the update will be reduced dramatically than before., allowing you to be back up and running far quicker, reducing your down time.
Game Bar layout improvements.
Game Bar has a new look to be easier to use, nicer looking, and support dark and light theme.
Bye-Bye HomeGroup
Microsoft pulled the plug on the Home Group feature that introduced back in Windows 7 as a way to make it easier to network share between computer in a home environment. This was removed as now you have OneDrive, OneDrive Files On-Demand, Nearby Share, and Share feature, which all together makes HomeGroup not needed. As Microsoft put it
"HomeGroup was terrific for the pre-cloud and pre-mobile era, but today this functionality is built right into Windows 10 and apps"
Calibrate your display for HDR.
For some displays, in order to have HDR support, the display needs to be calibrated at the factory. Microosft added a new option in Windows, which, if you have the tools, allows you to calibrate your display to make it HDR ready.
Startup Settings in Settings panel
The Settings panel now have the ability to manage your startup apps. You can find the option under: Settings > Apps > Startup
Adjust the brightness of SDR content on your HDR display
Windows now lets you adjust how bright SDR content appears when running in HDR mode on the desktop. On an HDR capable system, you will see a slider in the “HDR and advanced color settings” page under Settings > System > Display. This is one of the improvements to HDR image quality that we have planned based on feedback from Insiders.
Dictation
Win+H on your keyboard will show the new dictation bar which you can use with any app. Use it to enter text in any program text field or Word document.
File Explorer
Cloud state icon on Navigation Pane.
Focus Assist
Quiet Hours is now called Focus Assist
It will automatically turn on once you connect your system to a second display, so you will no longer be getting pop-up notifications when you do a presentation.
It will also automatically turn on when you play a full screen exclusive DirectX game.
Cortana improvements
Cortana notifications and pop-ups are now all regrouped in the Action Center. No longer split between Cortana panel and Action Center.
Notebook area got a cleanup and new look:
New Cortana commands to control your music:
Play Christmas music on Spotify
Play my discover weekly playlist on Spotify
Play <Artist/Track/Title/Genre/Mood> on <AppName>
Play some Drake
Play focus music
Play rock music
Play my tracks
What’s playing?
My People
You can now pin more contacts on the task bar
You can now drag and drop a contact from the People list to the task bar
You can now re-arrange people in the task bar
Settings
Settings panel home screen got redesigned
Disk Clean up now in Settings panel (old one still there, for now)
Under Storage Settings, you can now clean your disk freeing up storage. You can clean, like the old Disk Cleaner utility of Windows, old Windows installs, Temp files, Thumbnail cache, Recycling Bin, Temp. Internet Files (for IE and Edge), etc.
Fonts
Font management has been added to the Settings panel under Personalization > Fonts.
Designed for developers, the Font preview panel allows you to preview your own text, and not some generic one, by typing what you want to see in the preview in a box, and you can adjust the width and size via sliders.
You can also now download and purchase fonts from the Store app.
Revamp Ease of Access Settings
Ease of Access section of the Settings panels got revamp and reorganized, with the inclusion of group separation in the menu navigation. The changes reflect the ongoing effort to implement Fluent Design language that the company is going with, and to have the Settings panel be the central to manage all OS options. Expect more of this in the future.
Chinese text appears better than ever.
Microsoft has reworked the Microsoft Yahei Font to improve readability of simplified Chinese.
Touch Keyboard
Touch screen keyboard Fluent Design
The on-screen touch keyboard got the Fluent Design treatment
More language
Over 190 keyboard layouts have been added to the OS
Handwriting panel Improvements
Streamlined text insertion and removal
You can now insert/remove spaces and commit an entry via new pen gestures. Draw a “split” gesture between two words in the handwriting panel by drawing a vertical line between them. More space will be created where you drew the line so that you can write more in the newly-created space. As a reminder you can also draw a split gesture inside a word to break apart the word and ink more characters in the new space.
Improved re-recognition of words including Hindi
Embedded Handwriting panel on UWP apps, as you tap a text box with your pen, the text box will grow and allow you to write inside.
Improved Text suggestions for Japanese language
You can now choose a different font for the text being displayed in the input panel. The choices are now: Segoe UI (default), Segoe Print, and Segoe Script
Text suggestions as you type on a physical keyboard
Text suggestion on supported apps used to be only for touch screen keyboard. Now it is coming even if you use an actual keyboard. To enable the feature, make sure English (United States) language is added in Settings > Time & languages > Region & languages, then set this feature to “On” by enabling the “Show text suggestions as I type on hardware keyboard” setting under Settings > Devices > Typing.
Emoji Panel
You can now insert multiple emoji’s at once from the emoji panel, and supports more languages
Start menu
Jump to the UWP app Settings from the right-click menu
Data settings for cellular usage
A variety of options has been added to Windows 10 to improve data management of LTE powered devices. Like your cellphone, you can now make your system switch to LTE if Wi-Fi is poor, force switch to Wi-Fi if you are close to your limit on your data plan, and more.
From there you can directly configure the app Privacy options related to it, force terminate it, Reset, manage the app DLC and add-ons if any, and Uninstall the app.
High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF).
Windows now support HEIF formatted image. This means that now the Photo app can view them.
Edge
Edge isn't left out, of course, and got a nice set of features
You can now mute a tab from the right-clicking on the tab, or hitting the speaker icon on the tab.
Auto Fill forms (here is a demo video of it:
)
Push notification. Edge now support Service Workers and push notifications
Offline website. Edge finally support offline websites.
Ability to adjust the text spacing like on eBooks in Reading View
Ability to save free EPUB (eBooks) books on your system.
Managed acquired EPUB books in Edge by right-clicking on them:
Fluent Design
Redesigned Favorites/History/Download/Reading List/Books panel. The new look is no longer a cram mess, but rather, a polished experience.
EPUB and Reading View now has some grammar options, where you can have Edge highlight adjectives or verbs or Nouns
New full screen reading experience
Improve roaming of Table of Content and inserted Notes and highlights.
EPUB Media Overlay support
Option to never save passwords for a site
In Private Mode, you can now have Edge auto fill passwords that were previously saved
In Private Mode now supports Extensions
Dev tools of Edge can now be dock not only at the bottom of the web browser, or make it a floating panel, but it can be put on the right side.
For the Devs
Windows Subsystem for Linux
· You can now run WSL in the background
· Elevated and non-elevated WSL instances can run simultaneously
· WSL is now supported when connected via OpenSSH, VPN, Enter-PSSession, and/or other similar Windows remoting tools
· Wslpath tool has been added to convert Linux path to Windows-friendly paths
Windows
· Windows Command line now support CURL and bsdtar (tar)
· Unix style socket are now available (AF_UNIX)
For the IT
· New GPO can be set for Deliver Optimization options (Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Delivery Optimization)
· New “Registry” Process in the Task Manager, showing you the registry hive loaded in memory by the registry.Microsoft says:
Getting the Update
There is no exact release dates, but it should be coming in several days. As always, the update will be released in waves.
Here is a good overview of many of the changes in this new version:
Reminder
I recommend the following before upgrading the latest version:
Backup your data before upgrading, if you are forcing it, as if it is not released yet for you, you are not part of the wave or your system configuration has been reported to have issue that needs to be resolved first by Microsoft.
Uninstall your A/V and security software (beside Windows Defender), and restart your PC, before upgrading. Install them back once the update is complete. Normally it should be no problem if you ensure your security software are fully updated before starting the process, but just in case, as they are always reported issues since ever when it comes to these big updates (from Service Packs updates from the old days, to Windows 10 update builds)
If you used a registry cleaner at some point, you increased your chances of having a broken experience after upgrade
If you have had a virus or malware on your system that executed, as your A/V didn't catch it in time, then remember that your A/V doesn't fix registry changes or system file changes, and that can lead to broken Windows or failed update.
Ensure that ALL your drivers are FULLY updated before starting the upgrade process (Keyboard (if any), Mouse (if any), Motherboard chipset, Audio, Graphics card, peripherals, and any other cards installed)
What's After?
Code name Redstone 5. It will be the last version with the code name "Redstone" in the name.
It is expected to further push the fluent design
It is expected that Cortana to be moved from the Search box to the Action Center. We see part of it already being the case with this new update.
Tabs everywhere, called Sets. You can create groups of apps Win32 and UWP, including mixing them, and folders, which you can switch between, save/restore.
What was Before?
Sources and pictures: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/tag/windows-insider-program/#f20JRcOPBKi1PbX2.97