Your mouse settings can have a big impact on your gaming performance. The precision and accuracy of your aim can vary with settings like DPI and polling rate. Because of that you need to know how to optimize your settings to get the best performance. Below are my favorite tips for doing that. 1. Turn off mouse acceleration Mouse acceleration allows your mouse’s cursor speed to increase if the mouse is moved quickly. The setting can cause movement inconsistencies in games, so it’s best to switch it off. Here’s how to do that: Press Windows Key + I to open up Settings. Navigate to Bluetooth and Devices > Mouse. Now scroll down and choose Additional mouse settings. Switch to the Pointer Options tab. Uncheck the Enhance pointer precision option, and click Apply. 2. Customize the DPI The DPI settings determine how fast your cursor moves on your screen. Therefore, customizing the DPI is recommended to determine the speed of the cursor movement. You can customize your DPI in your gaming mouse’s companion app, or via your mouse’s DPI up/down buttons if it has them. But you should also customize DPI in Windows too. Here’s what to do: Go to the Mouse section in Settings. Adjust the slider beside Mouse pointer speed to zero. Now gauge how the mouse feels by moving it. Carefully move the slider up, gradually testing while you go until it reaches a pointer speed that you’re happy with. My happy point was about mid-way. 3. Update the mouse drivers Outdated mouse drivers can cause movement inconsistencies, so you’ll want to keep the drivers updated. You can update your mouse drivers through your mouse’s companion app. Most companion apps should do this automatically when you open them, so chances are your mouse is already up to date if you run the software simultaneously while using your mouse. 4. Increase the polling rate The polling rate refers to how many times per second a mouse reports the position of its cursor back to the computer. A higher polling rate reduces the lag between moving your mouse with your hand and seeing the cursor move on the screen. A high polling rate of 1,000Hz or more is recommended for games like first-person shooters where action is quick and reaction time is important. So, make sure you raise your polling rate to the highest you have available. This can be done in your mouse’s companion app. Pexels: Ron Lach 5. Enable raw input The input from your mouse usually goes through Windows before it reaches the game you’re playing. That causes some latency as it takes a little extra time for your game to read it. But you can bypass Windows with raw input. This setting allows the game to get input directly from the mouse instead of from Windows. To change to Raw Input, open your game’s settings menu and look for the option Raw Input Buffer (or something similar). You’ll want to turn this to on. 6. Turn on auto HDR Auto HDR is a Windows feature that’s usually switched off. But this feature improves the graphics quality of games and videos, so ideally you’ll want it switched on. The better graphics quality provided by auto HDR lets you track your mouse cursor more easily in games and helps you improve your aim. If you have a compatible display, turning it on is easy. You simply navigate to Settings > System > Display. Select the “HDR” option and turn on “Auto HDR.” 7. Turn off angle snapping Sometimes angle snapping is turned on by default in a gaming mouse’s companion app. When this is enabled, your mouse moves at a constant horizontal angle even if you make small vertical movements. Angle snapping can be useful to improve crosshair placement, but it can also make aiming difficult. So, I recommend you switch it off. You can turn off angle snapping in your mouse’s companion app. Related content Do I need a gaming mouse with a 4K polling rate? What DPI is good for gaming mice? Why don’t some esports mice have DPI switchers on top? Read...

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I’m always looking for helpful websites that can make life easier. Two I’ve recently discovered are TypingClub and Calculator Soup. Let’s take a peek at both! TypingClub I type relatively accurately and quickly now, but to get to that stage I needed to use a program to teach me how to type. There are a bunch of good ones around, but if you’re looking for low maintenance typing tutor you can just go to the website TypingClub. TypingClub shows you how to type quickly and correctly on your keyboard. You can participate in free training, and you don’t need a membership to use it. The tutorials take you through the steps to touch typing and after each tutorial there are practical activities for you to try. You also get presented with stats at the end of each one so that you can see your touch-typing speed and how you did on accuracy. Dominic Bayley / Foundry CalculatorSoup If you’re struggling to do anything worthwhile in Windows calculator, then it may be just too simple for you. You might need one of the calculators at CalculatorSoup. On the website you’ll find all kinds of calculators from general math calculators to loan calculators to chemistry calculators. Each calculator comes with a description and corresponding math laws so that you can apply them correctly. Dominic Bayley / Foundry That’s a wrap for this Try This. For more recommendations like these be sure to subscribe to our PCWorld Try This newsletter. Read...

The Upscayl tool uses several AI models to enhance your images. While unsightly edges and artefacts appear with a conventional enlargement, Upscayl reveals additional details. This means that even slightly blurred or too-small photos can be saved. This works by the AI guessing the possible details. This is exactly what it is trained to do. Upscayl uses the Real-Esgran and Vulkan architecture. However, this means that Upscayl requires a Vulkan-compatible GPU. It does not work with most integrated GPUs. You can find out whether your graphics equipment is Vulkan-compatible on the website vulkan.gpuinfo.org or with the free GPU-Z tool. Most reasonably up-to-date graphics cards fulfil the requirements. Upscayl uses several AI models with different specializations to scale and enhance images.Foundry The software can process various types of images, including photos, digital artwork, and even medical images. Upscaling is useful for improving quality or preparing images for printing. Installing Upscayl The first step is to install the tool. There are corresponding setup files for Windows, Linux, and Mac. In addition to packages in DEB and RPM format, appimages, flatpaks, and snaps are also available for Linux. The first time you start Upscayl, set the language and determine whether Upscayl should update itself automatically. You can also select a different design if required. However, all of this can also be done later. A short introductory video follows. The tidy interface makes it easy to load images and scale them larger with a click of the mouse. Foundry Click on “Settings” at the top left to configure the tool. Here you can set a different design and specify the format in which you want to save the enlarged images. You can also specify a fixed width. The tool then adjusts the height accordingly. It is best to leave the image compression at “0,” except for very large images, as compression is lossy and you will lose image information. The TTA mode is interesting. This stands for “Test Time Augmentation” and is intended to deliver even better results and eliminate artefacts. The program rotates the input image eight times, generates eight different outputs, and combines them. The downside: The process takes eight times as long. Load images and select model Some photos are simply too small to fulfill today’s requirements in terms of resolution and quality. In the past, 640×480 pixels was considered high-resolution. With Upscayl, photos can be enlarged quickly and additional details can be teased out. Upscayl scales low-resolution images up to 16 times larger and also improves the sharpness of the image. There are many AI models to choose from, so you can select the perfect algorithm for your image motif. The tool also offers batch processing, which allows you to process a folder in one go. Upscayl saves the upscaled images in either PNG, WEBP, or JPG format. Once you have opened the program, the next step is to load the image. The user interface is quite intuitive. You can drag and drop image files into the program window or add them using the “Select image” button. If you activate the “Batch Upscayl” slider, you specify a folder. Upscayl then scales all the images contained in it in one go. The AI models at a glance Now select which AI model should do the work and enlarge the image. The different models each have their own strengths. 1. The standard model is recommended for your first attempts: “Upscayl Standard” is based on Real-Esgran. This model aims to achieve high-quality results for a wide range of images. This is a good starting point for most images. 2. The “Upscayl Lite” selection prioritizes speed over image quality, although the loss of quality is rather small. It is suitable for large volumes of images or when processing time is critical. 3. The “High Fidelity” model ensures realistic details and smooth textures and is suitable for urban shots, for example. 4. The “Remacri” model is said to have the ability to improve image details and colors. It is ideal for photos with complex details or textures and brings additional sharpness to the images. 5.”Ultramix” offers a good balance between speed and image quality and between sharpness and detail. The “Ultrasharp” mode focuses on increasing sharpness, but this may come at the expense of image quality. 6. The “Digital Art” model is optimized for digital works and illustrations and aims to preserve artistic styles and details. It can also be used to scale pixel graphics. In principle, further models in NCNN format can be added to Upscayl. Setting the magnification factor By default, Upscayl enlarges the images to four times their original size. If you activate the “Double Upscayl” option, two passes are made, resulting in an enlargement by a factor of 16. As a rule, this does not make sense. The slider below defines the scaling factor to values between two and 16. A high scaling factor can be useful if you want to create high-quality prints. A factor of four means that both the width and height are quadrupled. The end result is therefore 16 times the resolution. An initial image with 2000×1200 pixels then becomes an impressive 8000×4800 pixels. By default, the result ends up in the folder of the original, but the output folder can be specified as required. Once you have made all the settings, start the process with “Upscayl.” How long the process takes depends largely on the performance of your graphics card. The duration ranges from less than a minute to well over an hour. Checking the result As soon as the processing is complete, check the new image. To compare the original and the upscaled version, Upscayl displays a slider. Even though it may appear almost unchanged at first, the zoom reveals the differences. Click on the three dots to adjust the zoom level or switch to a lens view. Here you will also find some statistics on how long the scaling took on average. In the zoom view, the qualitative differences between the result file and the original are clearly visible. Foundry If you are not satisfied with the result, it is a good idea to try out other models. Each model has different textures and details. You will only achieve the best results after a few experiments. Read...

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Apple’s MacBooks are icons of the creative arts, and are beloved by creatives for their performance and streamlined design. But as capable as they are, they don’t offer the same kind of power and versatility as the latest RTX AI PCs equipped with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards. If you’re considering a laptop upgrade this year, GeForce RTX 50 Series laptops, backed by the latest Blackwell architecture, are specifically designed to handle the most demanding creative projects, outperforming the competition in both speed and visual precision. Not to mention the latest AI features and some well deserved off-hours gaming. Explore NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Powered Windows gaming laptopsLearn more Accelerated creativity, elevated fun If you’re editing video, native 4:2:2 support delivers professional color grading tools to the masses  with twice the color information of standard 4:2:0 formats for high-fidelity editing while maintaining manageable file sizes. Equipped with the 9th-gen NVENC, the RTX 5070 is 2x faster than the Apple MacBook Pro with M4 Pro when encoding in popular applications like CapCut and DaVinci Resolve with HEVC. The latest encoders deliver 5% better quality in AV1 and HEVC. An additional AV1 Ultra High Quality mode further boosts quality by another 5%. The 6th-gen NVDEC enables 2x faster H.264 decoding. It also introduces hardware-accelerated mJPEG decode support. Plus AI effects in DaVinci Resolve run up to 2.1x faster on an RTX 5070 than on a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and perform 15% faster than the previous generation of RTX cards. Aspiring livestreamers can tap into 9th-gen NVENC hardware encoding for superior streaming quality without impacting your gaming or app performance, allowing for high frame rates while simultaneously encoding a high-quality stream. Native AV1 encoding enables higher quality streams at lower bitrates, providing up to 40% better compression efficiency than traditional H.264. Then there’s the exclusive NVIDIA Broadcast app, ideal for podcasters and streamers who require high production value without a room full of gear. This AI-powered tool enables background noise removal and virtual backgrounds to keep your focus on the content. With features like Studio Voice, which uses AI to enhance microphone quality to professional studio standards, and Virtual Key Light, which intelligently brightens your face in poorly lit environments. For 3D artists, the RTX 5070 transforms the creative process from a series of “wait-and-see” moments into a real-time interactive experience. DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation technology dramatically improves real-time viewport speeds during modeling and animation so you can iterate on complex scenes without the painful wait for your PC to catch up. NVIDIA OptiX Denoising uses AI to remove “noise” from preview renders with the RTX 5070 clocking in 3x faster than the Apple MacBook Pro with M4 in Chaos V-Ray. And hey, if you want to do a little gaming when you’re finished for the day, RTX 5070 supports DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation for the highest frame rates possible in modern gaming. For an even more chill but equally impressive entertainment experience, check out RTX Video that automatically enhances videos in Chrome, Firefox, Edge browsers and VLC to crystal-clear 4K HDR. Future proof AI The RTX 5070 is built to be the fastest platform for creators who use generative AI to speed up their workflows. Gen AI models and tools run natively on RTX 5070 GPUs through CUDA meaning everything works on Day 0. TensorRT-optimized models, available only on RTX GPUs, run up to 2x faster than native PyTorch models, providing the fastest performance for those who need it. In Stability AI’s latest image generation model, Stable Diffusion 3.5, the RTX 5070 laptop runs 12x faster than a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro. Out-of-the-box performance in ComfyUI, the visual platform for generative AI that enables easy branching, remixing, and customization of workflows, has been accelerated even further on RTX GPUs by up to 40%. RTX 5070 hardware also enables FP4 support, which is essential for fitting larger, more complex models on your device while ensuring they run as fast as possible. While Apple doesn’t disclose the raw capabilities of its neural processors, onboard NPUs tend to operate in the 10s of TOPS (Trillions of operations per second) range. That’s impressive, but RTX 5070s with dedicated 5th-gen Tensor Cores (AI chips) can offer hundreds of TOPS. Onboard NPUs are great for completing simple upscaling or webcam beautifying tasks, but for running large language models, or developing your own chatbots, having a dedicated RTX 5070 GPU with its own VRAM makes a big difference. Explore Windows and RTX If you’re been a MacBook user for a while, we get it: The idea of switching to Windows feels alien. And it probably will feel odd for a while, but it’s not like you’ll miss out on much in the way of applications. Many of the native macOS apps, like Apple Music, iCloud, Safari, run just fine on Windows, and there are equivalents of all the most popular apps that don’t. If you’re thinking about upgrading, or are curious about what a new laptop might help you do, then it’s well worth considering a switch to a new Windows laptop with a RTX 5070 Series GPU. They’re fast for all kinds of creative tasks, support the most capable of applications, and offer impressive battery life in their own right. Windows laptops with GeForce RTX graphics aren’t MacBooks, and that’s their real strength. Explore NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Powered Windows gaming laptopsLearn more Read...

With so many online accounts to deal with these days, it can be difficult to remember all the various login details. Sites demand specific mixes of special characters, numerals and letters, making it hard to keep these strange collections of characters in your head. Then there’s the ones you might not use very often and whose details have long since disappeared. It’s a lot to manage, especially when all you want to do is get into your account to order something or access the features. Well, there’s an easy answer to this chaos: 1Password. This award-winning password manager takes away the confusion and need for incredible feats of memory. So, if you’re tired of having to juggle too many logins, here’s how 1Password could make life a whole lot simpler. Save 50% on 1Password – ends December 31View Deal What does a password manager do? As the name suggests, this is software which stores and organises all of your passwords and account details in one place. They’re kept securely in a digital vault within the app, and can only be accessed by a master password. Sounds a bit technical? Not at all. You see, with 1Password you’ll only have to remember that single password, as the app will give you access to all your accounts automatically. Thanks to its Autofill feature, you’ll no longer have to manually log in to your accounts. Instead 1Password will do everything for you. Just open an app or go to a webpage and you’ll find the account fields instantly contain your details. No fumbling around trying to blindly type in complicated passwords, instead you just tap the login button and you’re good to go. You don’t even have to enter the master password, as 1Password supports biometrics like Face ID and fingerprint recognition to make logging on seamless. If you already use Chrome to store your passwords, then all of those can be quickly imported into 1Password, as can the details from all the main browsers, as well as other password managers. Fast, simple and safe. Quick payments and secure storage Alongside your passwords, you can also store payment information such as credit or debit card details, again which use autofill to speed up your time at the checkout page. This makes it quicker than ever to complete online purchases. Thanks to the high-grade encryption measures put in place by 1Password, you can rest assured that your information is secure from prying eyes. In fact, not even those working at 1Password can see your data, as everything is encrypted locally on your device. You can still access your data across all of your smartphones, laptops and tablets though, so you’ll never find yourself without that vital password when you need it. If you want to store more than just account details, then the 1Password vault contains areas for your passport, driving license, bank account, medical records, private documents, Wi-Fi codes and more. It’s like having a safety deposit box on your phone. You can also create different vaults that allow you to securely share passwords and documents with family members or friends, all without revealing your other data. Alternatively, there’s the option to securely share individual login details with someone, even if they don’t use 1Password. Save 50% on 1Password – ends December 31View Deal Protect yourself and your family Security is paramount with a password manager, and 1Password has Watchtower. This monitors for server breaches on the web that could expose your details, then warns you about them so you can immediately secure your accounts. The built-in password creator makes this smooth and fast, as you can generate incredibly complex replacements in seconds. As a one-stop shop for all your account data, payment details and other sensitive documents, 1Password simplifies the overly complex nature of life online. You can sign up to the 1Password Individual plan for only $3.99 $2.39 per month, which covers all your devices. Or there’s the Family plan that gives you up to five accounts for a total cost of only $5.99 $3.59 per month. Having to remember hundreds of passwords shouldn’t be something you need to worry about, so let 1Password take care of the details while you enjoy the bigger picture. Sign up now and save Save 50% on 1Password Individual & Family plans for a limited time! View Deal Offer ends December 31, 2025. Read...

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BBC Sport football expert Chris Sutton takes on The Wellermen`s Jonny Stewart - and AI - with his predictions for this weekend`s Premier League fixtures. Read...

With Kansas City`s dynasty over and a wedding to Taylor Swift to plan for, the Chiefs` final two games of the season could be Travis Kelce`s last in the NFL. Read...