Mortal Kombat 1 players have seemingly deduced how to finally face off against legendary secret challenge opponent Floyd. A self-confessed Floyd chaser, TheThiny, took to social media platform X to post a video of a fight against Floyd.According to TheThiny, the way to get Floyd to fight against you is to keep completing Floyd challenges, which then make him appear. The video posted by TheThiny was seemingly captured by another player who managed to trigger the fight against Floyd in Mortal Kombat 1s Tower game mode.TheThiny themselves have been quite active in the datamining community for Mortal Kombat 1, and has since also posted an entire shared doc that outlines the challenges players will have to complete to start a fight against Floyd. These challenges range from completing matches without taking a single hit with specific characters, to winning a match using not but throwing attacks.While several players have since been able to take on Floyd, the character is still shrouded in quite a bit of mystery. Players are now trying to figure out Floyds moveset, which seems to have quite a bit of range. Floyd also uses a host of different elemental attacks, including lighting and fire. Defeating Floyd for the first time also comes with an extra reward in the form of a new stage.Before Floyd was finally discovered by the Mortal Kombat 1 community, Ed Boon himself had been teasing the character earlier this month. Boon took to X to post about lyrics from the song Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, and referring to these lyrics as part of the ninja oath. Assets for Floyds existence in Mortal Kombat 1 were also discovered, lending further credence to the character being in the game somehow.Boon had also revealed earlier this week that Mortal Kombat 1 had been quite successful, having sold more than 5 million copies. The game was also in the top 15 of the most-played PS5 games.More recently Mortal Kombat 1 is gearing up to have Conan the Barbarian join its roster in a DLC slated for January 28. Developer NetherRealm Studios released a trailer showcasing Conans moveset, which is just as violent as you would expect. The DLC of the planned content roadmap for Mortal Kombat 1 will bring T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day to the game.Rmours from back in November, however, have indicated that the release of T-1000 would mark the end of post-launch content support for Mortal Kombat 1. According to these leaks, a host of content, including a story expansion as well as a Kombat Pack, have all been cancelled.Since its release, Mortal Kombat 1 has seen one story expansion and two Kombat Packs, which brought a host of new additions to the games roster. The studio itself has been quiet about whether the game will get more post-launch support after the current slate of releases comes to an end.For more details on Mortal Kombat 1, check out our review, and here is our speculation on what went wrong with the game.Another Floyd in the Wild!! https://t.co/hLwsoPXJf9 thethiny a floyd chaser (@thethiny) January 23, 2025The Floyd Excel Sheet is now complete with all 37 challenges!There might be some mistakes as I continue to monitor feedback and listen to others playthrough, but in general the sheet should be fine!Read the conditions on the right.https://t.co/SQA8m1bqhv pic.twitter.com/NlFpZgOK6K thethiny a floyd chaser (@thethiny) January 23, 2025

Photo courtesy of Burst from PexelsThe Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes (CBHCC) is inviting the public to participate in the winter 2025 public review of a proposed change to the 2020 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (NBC).The proposed change included in this public review addresses overheating in new dwelling units, by adding a maximum indoor air temperature for new dwelling units.The purpose of this process is to provide code users, the codes community, and the public with a detailed look at the proposed technical change, and seek comment as to whether it should be approved, altered or withdrawn. Feedback on the proposed change will help shape the National Model Codes, which are adopted, with or without modifications, by the provincial or territorial authorities having jurisdiction over the regulation of construction of buildings and houses.The public review will close at11:59 p.m. PST on February 24, 2025, after which comments will no longer be accepted. The CBHCC decides which changes will be published in the next edition of the National Model Codes based on the recommendations of the code development committees.Those interested in participating in the review can access the proposed change on the CBHCCs websiteand provide feedback.To learn more about public reviews, click here.The post Public review of proposed change to 2020 National Model Codes now open appeared first on Canadian Architect.

There's More to ThatHow to Use Renaissance Paintings to Improve the Farming of TomorrowAn arboreal archaeologist roots around the Italian countryside and in centuries-old frescoes for a cornucopia of fruits long forgottenbut still viable to grow and consumeAri DanielHost, "There's More to That"January 23, 2025 7:10 a.m.Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / Photos by Simona Ghizzoni / Images via the Metropolitan Museum of Art under public domainItalian researcher Isabella Dalla Ragione has a most unusual job. An arboreal archaeologist, Dalla Ragione scours Renaissance paintings and medieval archives, discovering endangered fruits that might be revived. Her lifes work offers a possible solution to the problem of monocrops. Year after year, agricultural giants cultivate the same varieties of the same fruits and vegetables, while many other varieties have fallen to the wayside. Monocrops contribute to climate change and are highly susceptible to its consequences, jeopardizing our food supply.In this episode, Dalla Ragione and Smithsonian contributing writer Mark Schapiro discuss the importance and challenges of protecting biodiversity and agriculture in the midst of a changing climateand why it matters.A transcript is below. To subscribe to Theres More to That, and to listen to past episodes on a plan to save Texas from deadly hurricanes, the wild story of Pablo Escobars hipposand how artificial intelligence is making 2,000-year-old scrolls readable again, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.Ari Daniel: Hi there. I am Ari Daniel, and Im on a Zoom call with Isabella Dalla Ragione. She looks like shes speaking to me from inside a Renaissance painting.Isabella Dalla Ragione: I have a church.Daniel: What do you mean you have a church? You live in a church?Dalla Ragione: Yeah, my house was a parish.Daniel: She sits in front of a huge stone mantle in her home, which is apparently a 600-year-old former church in Umbria, Italy. Perched above the mantel are bits of pottery baskets and other trinkets. Behind her is this long table with dozens of fruits strewn about in that kind of haphazard but deliberate way that you might expect to see in a still life.Dalla Ragione: Its a cool and dark room, and I use to keep the fruits.Daniel: Isabella is an agronomist, a person who studies crop production, but she says these fruits go beyond soil and seed cultivation. For her, theyre a deep connection to the past. She holds up a fruit the color of a Granny Smith apple, but the shape of a light bulb.What do you have there? That looks like a pear.Dalla Ragione: But its an apple.Daniel: Well, whats the difference between an apple and a pear? Because that looks just like a pear.Dalla Ragione: No, the pear has the stem here.Daniel: She points to the place where I imagine the stem should be based on my vast pear knowledgethat is, the narrower end at what looks like the top.Dalla Ragione: And instead this is the stem. The opposite.Daniel: She flips the fruit upside down and points to the fat, round end.Dalla Ragione: This is the point stem for the apple. The shape of the apple is this.Daniel: This isnt your garden variety apple. At least today its not. But if you lived in rural Italy several hundred years ago, it may well have been. We know that because Isabella has seen it in art museums across Italy.Dalla Ragione: This fruit is in many paintings of the Renaissance period because this kind of apple was very, very popular. They call it muso di bue. Cow-nose apple. Cow-nose because this is the shape of the cow nose.Daniel: Id never heard of a cow-nosed apple either. This fruit, once abundant in Italy, is now relegated to a few small, cloistered gardens, one of them Isabellas. But her goal is to change all this. Isabella happens to be a world-renowned fruit detective.Dalla Ragione: I look for these varieties, and I try to reconstruct their life just to demonstrate the richness that we had in the past. All my research, all my work is to demonstrate what kind of incredible patrimony we are losing. Because if a pear or an apple lived for 500 years, it means that these apples could be a very important and very interesting variety to save.Daniel: Isabellas goal is nothing less than resurrecting the fruits of the past. She uses archives, Renaissance paintings and a car she drives across the Italian countryside. Her passion isnt just cultural. She says our global food supply may well be at stake.From Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions, this is Theres More to That, the show where we compare apples and oranges to save the planet. Im your host, Ari Daniel. And in this episode: what paintings from the Renaissance can tell us about our agricultural future.Were calling Isabella Dalla Ragione a fruit detective, but she calls herself an arboreal archeologist.Dalla Ragione: An arboreal archaeologist is not a real profession. Its a name that my father gave to our activity because the similarity with the work of the archeologiststhe real archeologists look for some piece, pottery, some small piece from the soil, and they try to reconstruct the life of a civilization, a life of a community, a life of a place. So we did the same with fruits.These fruits were not only fruits. They are worlds. They are full of meanings, traditions, stories, links with the people. If we could find a special fruit, we could find all the stories, all the links with the people, all the traditions, et cetera, et cetera.Daniel: These ideas were a big part of Isabellas childhood.Dalla Ragione: I grew up in a small village, Sansepolcro, that still is a rural area. So the nature, the plants were a real part of my life. My father, in the 60s and 70s, he started this kind of incredible research work about the rural culture because just at that time, this rural culture completely changed, disappeared, really. So he started to try to save all the signs about this rural culture, and one of the most important things of this rural culture, of course, were the plants, the trees and the fruit trees. So I started with him to look for and to find these trees, these fruit trees. Of course, at the beginning it was like an adventure, like an adventurous trip. So then, of course, when I grew up, I could understand that to find these plants, I could understand our roots. This is the great things that my father passed to me.Daniel: But it was Isabellas own discovery that evidence of different fruits and plants could be found within frescoes and paintings across Italy.Dalla Ragione: To reconstruct the life of a variety of a fruit was like to do a puzzle, a piece of information from different parts. One of these parts is the art.Mark Schapiro: I was fascinated by Isabellas work. Of course, the fact that she did it with some of these most amazing paintings was truly eye-opening and extraordinary for me.Daniel: Mark Schapiro is a journalist and author who teaches at UC Berkeley. He recently visited Isabella in Italy to explore their shared interest in restoring biodiversity and wrote about it for Smithsonian magazine.Schapiro: As thrilling as it was to go with Isabella, who drives very quickly on those Italian highways, occasionally takes her hands off the steering wheel as were careening around and shes explaining a very important point. I have to say that this kind of effort to bring biodiversity back is happening in different parts of the world, but very few people are using paintings to identify where those lost crops are.Daniel: Mark has been writing about climate change and the loss of biodiversity for years.Schapiro: Ive been following the shrinkage of biodiversity when it comes to agriculture, and that is arising out of the very fast pace of consolidation in the agribusiness industries to the point where more than 50 percent of all commercial seeds are really controlled by four different companiesfour in the world. And so one of the effects that thats had, both in the United States and in Italy and around the world, is a dramatic constriction in the varieties of crops that are being grown.Daniel: When I think about my last trip to the produce section of the supermarket, I recall maybe half a dozen kinds of apples, one or two kinds of blueberries, green grapes, red grapes. But these are just a few of the varieties and species that people once consumed. And as weve come to rely more and more on big agribusiness, our connections to this richer, fruitier heritage have been lost.Schapiro: There was something Isabella said that I think is important to remember. If you think of biodiversity as a form of language, older varieties have what she calls a language that is a far more complicated language than the language that is associated with the current varieties. The new varieties she describes have maybe three, four or five words in their language. What were seeing in these paintings is evidence of these fruits with much more complicated language at their disposal.Daniel: Mark and Isabella say this more limited vocabulary jeopardizes our food supply.Dalla Ragione: The example of bananas. Bananas is incredibly unstable cultivation. Banana is not only one species, is one varietyCavendish. And not only this, it is a clone. Millions and millions of hectares of cultivation of bananas are based on one clone.Daniel: So we dont have a language. Youre down to a single word.Dalla Ragione: One word, and very short.Daniel: A lot gets lost when this language of biodiversity disappears, but the Renaissance paintings that Isabella studies provide clues to get some of it back, which means the fruits in these paintings arent merely decorative. Theyre a tether to a cultural and culinary heritage.Schapiro: I remember finding this painting with Isabella.Daniel: Mark described walking through the halls of the National Gallery. Thats the National Gallery of Umbria, in Perugia, Italy, where Isabella grew up.Schapiro: You are walking along a passage, and youre passing all these other masterpieces. And then she suddenly stops me and said, Weve got to look at this painting.Daniel: The painting was Piero della Francescas Polyptych of St. Anthony.Dalla Ragione: I was born in Sansepolcro. That is the birthplace of Piero della Francesca, so Im very close to him, because he is one of the most important painters of the early Renaissance.Schapiro: Its a big altar. Its probably six, seven feet tall. And so Im looking, and I see the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. She is in kind of a blue robe with a halo. And Im looking at that going, Yeah, this is a beautiful painting. Its incredible color, just radiates off the painting. And to be honest, I certainly wouldnt have noticed the fruit until Isabella pointed it out.Daniel: Blink and you miss it. Clutched in the hand of baby Jesus, whos sitting in Marys lap of blue robes, is a tiny bunch of cherries.Dalla Ragione: It is the only painting where Piero della Francesca painted fruit. So for me it was really a big surprise when I saw this painting. This is the way in our area how the grandmothers prepared small bunches of cherries to teach to the babies how to eat the cherries. So its very incredible for me to find the same way in the hand of the child in this painting. Maybe at the time of Piero della Francesca the grandmothers use it the same way. In any case, he used this kind of cherries because cherries are a very important symbol of Christs blood.Daniel: Those cherries have long since disappeared from most Italians diets. But something else gets lost with every variety of fruit we no longer grow and consume. Something incredibly precious.Schapiro: Lets say if we go back 500 years, which in this case in Italy, were talking about the fruits of 500 years ago, those trees, over the course of 500 years, theyve had to adapt to some years are colder, some years are warmer, some years have different pests, some years have different diseases. And those varieties that survive will have some resilience to those kinds of shifts. And now those shifts are getting to be more extreme. The new varieties are most often bred for a reliance on a precise set of chemicals to survive. The four big companies that dominate the seed trade are basically chemical companies. And so they breed seeds that are completely reliant on their chemicals to survive in a certain set of conditions. When those conditions change, the chemicals are not strong enough to enable them to actually withstand the enormous pressures and the enormous changes that have happened. What I began finding was that the new modern varieties of food crops have incredible vulnerabilities to these changes.Im here in California where thereve been enormous shifts in the yields of fruit crops. I did some work on cherries. And I saw that, just for one quick example, that its not cold enough for cherries to fully ripen. Usually, amazingly enough, cherries have to get cold in the November and December, in the winter months, in order to kind of almost hibernate for a two-month period before they can come out and fully blossom. So I think what was interesting about Isabellas work in this larger context is that study after study after study is showing that actually its crops that have actually evolved in a specific location that are best able to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances.Daniel: Isabella says that Renaissance paintings are particularly helpful when trying to identify fruits.Dalla Ragione: Especially from the beginning of 1400 to the middle of 1500, because before, the art was like a Byzantine art, not really close to the nature. So it was impossible to recognize the natural objects from these paintings. Instead, in the Renaissance period, each fruit that the painters choose it to put in the painting has a very important meaning, a very important symbolism. The painters used fruits that could be recognized from everybody because the message had to arrive to everybody, to the rich people, to the poor people, to the farmers, to the aristocratic. So for that, they use it a very well-known fruit.Daniel: Isabella offers another example, from the Palazzo Trinci in the town of Foligno.Dalla Ragione: And Palazzo Trinci is a place where there are incredible frescoes of Gentile da Fabriano. Gentile da Fabriano was an incredible painter, very precise. And at the end of 1300s, late Middle Ages, very early Renaissance. And this place is still a mystery also for me because Im still studying these frescoes, because the frescoes are a life cycleciclo della vita. And this kind of frescos is incredible because each age of the human life is represented with a fruit. For example, the child and teenager are going up in the pear tree, and elderly age is with peaches.Daniel: Mark really appreciates Isabellas unique approach, her process of moving between a painting and an actual location of where a fruit might still be grown, and how she uses archival records of landowners to figure out what kinds of fruits were growing five centuries ago.Schapiro: And she described going to monasteries, which often had these very old orchards still, where the very fruits that youd see in a painting would be growing in these old, ancient monasteries that had kind of been forgotten. Suddenly I started looking for fruit, too.Dalla Ragione: Yeah, this is my disease.Daniel: Once you found a fruit like this cow-nosed apple, how does this help us in terms of the biodiversity, the climate change? What does the cow-nosed apple allow us to achieve, or a fruit like it?Dalla Ragione: So this is the question, why I saved all these apples and pears.Daniel: Isabella says that Italy was once a place of rich agricultural biodiversity. But thats been replaced by the same consolidation she and Mark described earlier. This loss, when combined with a rapidly changing climate, endangers our food supply. But these cow-nosed apples, those cherries, et cetera have been around for centuries, and they likely could survive for centuries more.Dalla Ragione: We dont know what will happen. We dont know which is the variety that we will need. And the things are changing very, very fast. So I think that its very important to save all the richness in biodiversity. And instead, we are doing the opposite. We are the image that we are immortal. We are not immortal. We need this biodiversity. But if nobody saves this biodiversity, we lose, and we lose definitely forever.Daniel: A single type of plant or crop is called a monoculture. So one kind of corn or one type of bananathe same crop, farmed and harvested over and over, almost like a Xeroxed copy with very little genetic variation. Same taste, same quality, same abilityor inabilityto survive for generations. And its what most modern industrial farms are built upon.Dalla Ragione: I think that we have to consider that the monoculture is absolutely unstable. The stability of a system is gained from diversity. And the complex system, this is stable. But monoculture is absolutely not complex. If something happened, happened to the old field, old land. So we have to restore this agroecosystem means to restore complexity. Complexity means also to restore biodiversity. For example, in Italy now, we are starting to cultivate a mix of wheat, for example. Not only one species, not only one varieties, not only one ecotype, but mixed. Because in this way, if you cultivate different things, you have more stability. If something happenedan insect, a disease, a weather eventsomething happened, but doesnt destroyed everything, destroyed maybe one part, but you always have something.Schapiro: Its like survival of the fittest in the field. We dont apply it in the field, but imagine having numerous varieties in a field, in which case, some, yes, some will die, but some will survive. And those that survive have the ability to adapt over the course of shifting conditions. And that is, I think, why its critical to have this kind of biodiversity.And I would probably just add that theres growing awareness of knowledge of Indigenous communities in different parts of the world, including here in the United States, where you have very rich cultures of people whove been living there for thousands of years, growing foods, that we can actually learn from.Daniel: Mark says that biodiversity is a cause increasingly championed by scientists and policymakers. He points to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a global attempt to preserve the remaining diversity on the planet.Schapiro: And whats interesting about trying to hold on to levels of biodiversity, both in plant and animal life, is while its a big global challenge, its also extremely specific. It requires attention on a very local level to preserve these kind of local varieties over time, that essentially has to happen in regions like the one that Isabella lives in in Umbria. And we need to have similar kind of efforts in other parts of the world. And I think its actually important to understand that in this larger frame.Daniel: Before I let Isabella go, I cant help but ask Im wondering, are there any fruits that remain a kind of mystery to you that you really want to find in the world somewhere?Dalla Ragione: Im looking for a variety of fig that I never foundthat is a fico rondinino.Daniel: Rondinino.Dalla Ragione: Rondinino means a swallowa bird.Daniel: Yeah.Dalla Ragione: The black bird. A small swallow fig. Ive never found. And another very, very popular in the Renaissance, the carovella pear that is always named and described in the books of Renaissance period, the 1500s, 1600s, and then disappeared completely. But I never stop to look for, because always when I thought that, No, its impossible to find, I found. The research is a full of surprises.Daniel: Thank you both so much for just a really delightful conversation, and I wish you luck in your search for that rondinino and those other mysterious fruits that remain to be uncovered. Thank you.Dalla Ragione: Thank you.Daniel: Grazie.Dalla Ragione: You too, everybody. Ciao.Schapiro: All right. Thank you. Great talking with you.Dalla Ragione: Ciao, ciao. Ciao, ciao, ciao.Daniel: You can read more from Mark Schapiro about Isabella Dalla Ragione and see photos of all of these fruits and paintings online at SmithsonianMag.com. Well put a link in our show notes. Youll also find a link to subscribe to future issues of Smithsonian magazine.Theres More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeart Radio App and wherever you get your podcasts.From the magazine, our team is me, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rozas Rivera, Sandra Lopez-Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.Our episode artwork is by Emily Lankiewicz. Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music. Im Ari Daniel. Thanks for listening.I think Im going to go have an apple.Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox.Filed Under: Agriculture, Art, Climate Change, Farming, Food, Food Science, Italy, Renaissance, There's More to That

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The latest batch of new Pokmon TCG PocketThe Pokmon Company announced today that Space-Time Smackdown, Pokmon TCG Pockets latest expansion, is set to debut at the end of the month right after the games trading feature launches on January 29th. While cards from the last set could all be obtained from a single type of pack, Space-Time Smackdown which includes a number of monsters from Pokmon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum will come from packs featuring the legendary Pokmon Dialga and Palkia.Along with Space-Time Smackdowns announcement, TCPi also revealed a bit more about how the trading mechanic will involve two new types of in-game currencies trade houseglasses and trade tokens. It seems as if there will be cooldown periods as well as a cost if you want to swap cards from Pockets Genetic Apex and Mythical Island sets with other players. But there will definitely be some waiting involved for people hoping to trade Space-Time Smackdown, which will not be tradeable until a later date after it drops on January 30th.

In 2022, I wrote that GPUs were headed in the wrong direction their price, size, and power consumption were off the charts. And while I still believe thats true, I can now confirm Nvidia has at least made one phenomenal exception in the size category: the two-slot Founders Edition of its RTX 5090 graphics card, on sale January 30th. The last time Nvidia made a two-slot flagship graphics card, it was the 2021 RTX 3080 Ti FE the 3090, 4080 and 4090 were gigantic by comparison. So, while my colleague Tom Warren was busy writing his full review of the new 5090 using the best gaming CPU, I wedged one of the $2,000 cards into my own aging mini desktop. I wanted to see whether the surprisingly small flagship GPU was truly ready for small form factor (SFF) cases or, whether my beloved 12.7-liter Ncase M1 chassis is well and truly obsolete. 1/7Gallery: The 5090 may be a two-slot card, but its not as small as two-slot cards of yesteryear like this RTX 3080...1/7Gallery: The 5090 may be a two-slot card, but its not as small as two-slot cards of yesteryear like this RTX 3080...To my surprise, it worked: all I needed was a new power supply to turn my backpack-sized daily driver into one of the most powerful gaming PCs in the world. At 4K resolution, Im typically seeing more than double the framerate I get with an RTX 3080 Founders Edition, one of the last cards that could comfortably fit in the Ncase M1, to give you some idea.But Im not going to suggest you do the same! For starters, were talking about a two thousand dollar graphics card and a one thousand watt power supply which I actually saw consuming up to one whole kilowatt (as measured by my trusty Kill A Watt at the wall) in my Cyberpunk 2077 tests. With an RTX 3080, my system consumed over 200 fewer watts. Not that I minded having a space heater on these cold January days!But I literally had to wedge the 5090 into my Ncase M1 to make it fit, and even remove and reattach the video cards bracket inside my case. And even then I couldnt fully seal my desktop because the GPUs new 12V-2x6 power connector occupies a chunk of space where my cases side panel is supposed to go. Youll want an SFF-ready case with more clearance than I have.It took a bit of elbow grease to get it in there.If not for that power cable...Still, leaving my desktops guts exposed was a small price to pay to toy with this much power! Its enough to play games at 4K at their maximum settings, save for full ray tracing (aka path tracing). Its even got enough horsepower to turn on path tracing, too, if you combine it with dynamic upscaling and/or fake frame generating tech. I normally play Helldivers 2 on an old 3060 Ti graphics card I bought for just $400, where Im forced to rely on those tricks just to get smooth 4K-ish gameplay. It was quite nice, if expected, to finally max out that game on the 5090 instead.What I didnt expect: my aging, space-constrained AMD 5800X desktop delivered the same performance as Toms open-air testing rig in quite a few of our 4K gaming benchmarks. I knew it was possible, but it goes to show that Nvidias fancy two-slot double flow through cooler really is suitable for SFF PCs.RTX 5090 SFF test at 4KGameSean's SFF 5090Tom's Bench 5090Percent DifferenceAssassin's Creed Mirage (Ultra High, Native)1351446.67%Black Myth: Wukong (100% resolution)6362-1.59%Black Myth: Wukong (DLSS + Frame Gen)147146-0.68%Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Extreme)1401453.57%Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, no RT)1081090.93%Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra RT + DLSS Quality + FG)1521530.66%Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (Very High, Native)11215336.61%Horizon Zero Dawn (DLSS Quality + Frame Gen)20623715.05%Metro Exodus Enhanced (Extreme)9291-1.09%Returnal (Epic)1381422.90%Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest)20723814.98%Average framerates at 4K resolution.It depends on whether your games are CPU limited, of course, as my older PC does have a slower CPU and most of todays games tend to be at least somewhat CPU limited at 1440p resolution, where Toms system often pulled far ahead by 20 to 60 percent.RTX 5090 SFF results at 1440pGameSean's SFF 5090Tom's Bench 5090Percent DifferenceAssassin's Creed Mirage (Ultra High, Native)13718837.23%Black Myth: Wukong (100% resolution)91910.00%Black Myth: Wukong (DLSS + Frame Gen)1801810.56%Call of Duty: BO6 (Extreme)16119621.74%Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, no RT)14820739.86%Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra RT + DLSS Quality + FG)20724618.84%Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (Very High, Native)12320062.60%Horizon Zero Dawn (DLSS Quality + Frame Gen)22229934.68%Metro Exodus Enhanced (Extreme)12014520.83%Returnal (Epic)16720120.36%Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest)22335458.74%Average framerates at 1440p.Facing down the alien swarms and flying particles in Returnal, for example, Tom pulled 201 frames per second at 1440p while my diminutive desktop managed just 169fps; in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, the most CPU-limited game were testing, my bottlenecked system averaged just 123fps to Toms 200fps. But thats still over 120fps on max settings, more than enough for butter-smooth sessions of these single-player games! And if I were to pair my tiny tower with a 4K TV in my living room instead of a 1440p monitor, as many SFF PC builders might like to do, Id have a blast my 4K results always averaged over 60fps, and were often within just a few FPS of Toms open bench. RTX 5090 vs 3080 4K SFF testGameSean's 5090 SFFSean's 3080 SFFRoughly how much fasterAssassin's Creed Mirage (Ultra High, Native)135652.1x as fastBlack Myth: Wukong (100% resolution)63222.8x as fastBlack Myth: Wukong (DLSS Quality)93392.4x as fastCall of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Extreme)140582.4x as fastCyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, no RT)108402.7x as fastCyberpunk 2077 (Ultra RT + DLSS Quality)89382.3x as fastHorizon Zero Dawn Remastered (Very High)112591.9x as fastMetro Exodus Enhanced (Extreme)92332.8x as fastReturnal (Epic)138612.3x as fastShadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest)207892.3x as fastAverage framerates at 4K resolution.And again, Im typically seeing the RTX 5090 delivering more than twice the horsepower of an RTX 3080, making it quite the upgrade for SFF fans with deep pockets. Thats not necessarily something to celebrate, though: the $2,000 RTX 5090 admittedly costs more than twice as much as a $700 RTX 3080 did at its 2020 launch, and will be out of reach for most gamers even if shortages and scalpers dont rear their ugly heads. When it comes down to it, I think the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is a damn cool piece of kit. It makes me want to quote Ferris Buellers Day Off because it is so choice. Its a noteworthy exception to the very annoying trend of GPUs expanding in every direction. But at $2,000, 575 watts of power by its lonesome, and with no other Nvidia board partner offering anything nearly as compact, its the exception that proves the rule.Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Square Enix has now completed the story of the third and final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.Speaking to Famitsu and translated by Eurogamer, Final Fantasy series producer Yoshinori Kitase and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi said development on the highly anticipated conclusion is progressing smoothly."I'm very satisfied with [the story], so I'm sure fans will be satisfied with the final chapter," Kitase said, adding that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth creative director Tetsuya Nomura gave him "homework" to ensure this was the case.The story of Part 3, which currently lacks an official name or release window, was required to have a respect for the original Final Fantasy 7 alongside a new level of satisfaction not felt in that game, Kitase said.I'm very satisfied with [the story], so I'm sure fans will be satisfied with the final chapter.Square Enix announced its plans to release Final Fantasy 7 Remake as a trilogy in June 2022, following the release of the first game which had fans questioning if the entire story would need a dozen parts to be told properly. This is because Final Fantasy Remake itself only adapted the opening few hours of the original game, up to the point where the party leaves Midgar.Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth expanded the scope significantly, however, introducing the open world and thus covering myriad locations such as Costa del Sol, the Golden Saucer, and many more, including some new ones.It brought the overall story up to the end of Disc 1 of the original Final Fantasy 7, which closes in both games with what's arguably the most iconic moment in video game history.Part 3 will pick up immediately after this, though very little is known about it so far. Development began in June 2022 but Square Enix hasn't said when it will end, only vaguely noting it hopes to release Part 3 by 2027.Every Gold Saucer Date (1997 vs. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth)IGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!IGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!To start:...try asking a question that can be answered with a "Yes" or "No".000/250Something it has said, however, is that it "will not cheat" when it comes to the Highwind airship. This allowed the party to quickly move around the map in the original game but, now in the world of fast travel, many fans wondered how the iconic ship could be implemented."We will not cheat with the airship system [in Part 3] but take the challenge head on so it can freely fly all over the game map," Hamaguchi said in November.In our 9/10 review of the last game, IGN said: "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion, both as a best-in-class action role playing game full of exciting challenges and an awe inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long."Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Of all of the things connected to your PC, your mouse would be the last thing you'd expect to set itself alight. But that was the reality redditor lommelinn faced after they reportedly found their gaming mouse alight on their desk while their PC was in sleep mode and it almost burned down their apartment.Posting to reddit, Iommelinn claimed: I smelled smoke early this morning, so I rushed into my room and found my computer mouse burning with large flames. Black smoke filled the room. I quickly extinguished the fire, but exhaled a lot of smoke in the process and my room is in a bad shape now, covered with black particles (my modular synth as well). Fortunately, we avoided the worst, but the fact that this can happen is still shocking. It's an older wired, optical mouse from Gigabyte.The mouse in question is a Gigabyte M6880X, an older wired mouse that seems like a completely normal wired gaming mouse. With no battery inside and running via USB 2.0, which only pulls in 5V of power at 0.5A, the Gigabyte M6880X's alleged catastrophic failure has certainly raised eyebrows.In images posted by the user, the mouse itself appears to have had its top rear panel completely melted away, with the underside of the mouse managing to escape from much damage. The reasons behind why only the top casing of the mouse was damaged is also a mystery. In additional imagery, the damage to the users desk is also present, with a melted portion of the desk and mousepad in sight.Gigabyte officially responded to Iommelinns claim in a comment within the reddit thread, confirming it had launched an investigation:Hi Everyone,"We have been made aware of the incident shared by lommelin regarding the M6880X gaming mice. Our customer's safety is our top priority and we are actively looking into this case. Our team has reached out to lommelin to offer support and to investigate the matter fully. In the meantime, we appreciate the communitys understanding and patience as we work to address this issue."Best,"The GIGABYTE Team.In a subsequent reddit post, lommelinn expressed their disbelief at the surprising series of events. "My PC was in sleep mode," they explained. "Since then, I checked the USB port with a voltage meter and it's fine. No clue how this can happen."Image credit: Iommelinn / reddit.Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech & hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.

The Oscar nominations are at last here. After painful and necessary delays due to the wildfires in California, we now know who the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have deemed to be the best films of 2025. All 10 of them.Its still a bit surreal after months of speculation and prognostication that the envelope is in for the 10 films nominated for Oscars shiniest prize. There have been snubs and surprises along the way, but below we have gathered all chosen few for your perusal. If you need a chance to catch up on some of them, or simply wish to know how to see them again, below is a viewing guide to the Best Picture nominees of 2025.NEONAnoraSean Bakers AnoraAnora is available to rent or buy on: Amazon and Apple (U.S. and UK)A24The Brutalist*Brady Corbets monumental, 3.5-hour exploration of the myth (and maybe lie) of the American immigrant experience is a frontrunner at this years Oscars with many expecting The Brutalist to take home the top prizes for Best Picture and Best Director. The film also features career-best performances from Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones as educated Jewish Holocaust survivors who flee the horrors of Europe and find capitalist predations unique to the U.S. Both actors were nominated for Oscars, as is Guy Pearce in the Best Supporting Actor category.The Brutalist is currently playing only in theaters.Searchlight PicturesA Complete UnknownTimothe Chalamet is Bob Dylan. Thats at least what the posters and trailers tell you about A Complete Unknown. And it seems that the Academy was convinced to agree. Chalamet picked up his second Oscar nomination for playing the voice of a generation, which was just one in a fleet of nods this James Mangold musical biopic received, including Best Picture.A Complete Unknown is currently playing only in theaters.ConclaveWho knew cardinals could go so hardcore? Probably anyone who paid close attention to the inner-workings of the Vatican, and that is now a lot more people thanks to Edward Bergers shockingly taut and addictive political thriller, Conclave. A parable about almost any power struggle occurring in the West this century, the film pits progressives against conservatives with the throne of St. Peter on the lineand it does so with a murderers row of talent in front of the camera, including Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and more!Conclave is available to stream on: Peacock(U.S. only); and to rent or buy on: Apple (U.S. and UK)WBDune: Part TwoAnother cinematic Chalamet experience, Denis Villeneuves Dune: Part Two is the highest grossing movie (for now) on this list. It is also a true cinematic achievement that seems destined to stand the test of time among science fiction and blockbuster fans, particularly since it did the seemingly impossible by sticking the landing while adapting Frank Herberts ponderous novel of the same name. Honestly, its a bit strange this film isnt more of a frontrunner.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Dune: Part Two is available to stream on: Max(U.S. only), Netflix (U.S. only), and NOW (UK only)NetflixEmilia PrezPerhaps the most controversial movie on the list, Jacques Audiards Emilia Prez is a galaxy-brained swing for the fences in which a French filmmaker tells the story of how a Mexican drug cartel leader (Karla Sofa Gascn) who transitions into becoming a woman and a better person with the help of her corrupt, if guilt-ridden, attorney (Zoe Saldaa). And its a musical. Some people admire its earnest audacity and fearlessness while others suggest Audiard should have stayed in his lane. Decide for yourself.Emilia Prez is available to stream on: Netflix(U.S. and UK)Sony Pictures ReleasingIm Still HereA surprise nomination, this, Walter Salles Im Still Here is a Brazilian film about living in the shadow of uncertainty and dictatorship. Based on the real disappearance (and eventually confirmed murder) of Rubens Paiva, a civilian engineer and outspoken critic of the military dictatorship that consumed his country in the 1960s and 70s, the film is really about the shadow of the unknown left on his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres).Im Still Here is currently playing in theaters.MGMNickel BoysOne of the best movies of the year, which we are relieved to see make the list, RaMell Ross Nickel Boys is a groundbreaking exploration of perception, identity, and memory. It places viewers directly into the shoes of a young Black man in 1960s Florida when he is unjustly sent to the Nickel Academy reform school (a fictionalized version of the real-life horror show at the Dozier School for Boys). Through his eyes, and that of a friend, we experience the joys, sorrows, and betrayal of surviving in America.Nickel Boys is currently playing only in theaters in the U.S. and UK.The SubstanceOnly the seventh horror film to ever be nominated for Best Picture, Coralie Fargeats The Substance is a body horror fantasia. As much dark comedy and satirical, rage-fueled screed as a straight-ahead chiller, The Substance will still take your breath away and curl your toes as Demi Moores Elisabeth Sparkle will do anything to look more youthful including take a magic drug that causes a more nubile young thing (Margaret Qualley) to pop out of her body Alien style.The Substance is available to stream on: Mubi(U.S. and UK); and available to rent on: Apple, Amazon (U.S. and UK)Wicked*The other mega-blockbuster on this list, and perhaps the real populist contender for the Best Picture crown, is Jon M. Chus soaring adaptation of Wicked. Well, at least one half of Wicked since the film transfers only Act One of the Broadway musical to the screen. Be that as it may, its bowled moviegoers over thanks to Cynthia Erivos powerhouse performance and Ariana Grandes heavenly vocals. And wouldnt you know it, both of them got Oscar nominations this morning.Wicked is available to rent on: Apple, Amazon (U.S. and UK)