08/10/2020 week Highlights

 

1.)  Python Programming Language gets its latest 3.9 version update

2.)   Call of duty Modern Warfare will now not fit in 250Gb SSD

3.)    Crysis 3 running totally on RTX 3090

4.)    Android Go users get the dedicated night mode in Google Camera Go

5.)    QNTW: What is bottlenecking and why is it important to care about?

 

DETAILS:

 

Python Programming Language gets its latest 3.9 version update

Python has recently got its new version update which is Python 3.9. This update comes with many minor improvements and some notable and difference making changes. The update along with its long history of popularity can also end Python ahead of Java in Tiobe’s programming language popularity which has been consistently ranking the best programming languages from 2001. We all hope to see every language develop and compete other for good.

The only downside I think it that it will no longer be available directly in Windows other than Windows 10. Though, some tweaks may allow it to work after some time. And no new release is likely to support these windows from this release.

Some notable improvements are:

Union (|) and newUnion (|=) are now available for dictionaries which work similar to (+) and (+=) in operators respectively.

Addition of removeprefix and removesuffix functions.

The current LL(1)-based parser is replaced by new PEG parser for CPython and is far more flexible than its predecessor.

Addition of new modules zoneinfo and graphilib.

Some improved modules with added functionalities and better optimizations

The overall interpreting time is reduced by many ways.



Advice: Always keep yourself with updated software if the software is used daily because most of the updates optimize the software for good. For details about this update: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/python-3-9-0rc2-is-out-with-some-exciting-new-features/

 

Call of duty Modern Warfare will now not fit in 250Gb SSD

Many gamers already know that COD MW is a space killer and takes a huge disk space. It took 175 Gb on its initial release. Since then, every update to the Game is only increasing the space required by 10s of Gbs space. It comes with two playable modes, a Single Player Campaign mode and BattleRoyale online mode. Though, the game provides the option to install only the required mode in consoles, it hasn’t given PC gamers this flexibility. Many people have already dedicated their whole 250 Gb of SSDs and HDDs to this game only. But, the time has come when it will no longer fit on a full 250Gb disk. With its latest update, it will require more than a normal go-to disk space for whole computer system. The franchise is known well for its space usage from a long time with Warzone needing 75Gb and World War 2 using 90 Gbs and other popular titles also not hesitating to take a lot of space.



Advice: If you are planning to play the game in near future, either wait until the update when it will allow PC users to choose only the required game mode or get a disk with more than 250Gb of space. 

Crysis 3 running successfully on RTX 3090

Yes, you heard it right. The Crysis 3 runs on a 3090 in the highest settings. But, what is the surprise? It is a very old game while 3090 is a top of the line most recent and a 1500$ price tagged GPU. But, it only did not run Crysis 3 but the whole game was installed on the GPU. The GPU comes with a 24Gb of VRAM. A crazy experimenter used a virtual VRAM drive maker to make 15Gb of VRAM used as a storage option where he installed the games and the remaining 9Gb was used to run the game. And guess what? 3-4 Gb of VRAM is still unused. The opening time was very slightly faster than SSDs but, it goes to optimizations which if developers see potential in the field will very soon be done on storage APIs for VRAM which could boost the Loading Time making it much faster than even the best SSDs out there. Though, we have not come to an age where VRAM capacity actually surpasses the required storage size of most the games of the time, it might be possible with new research and new architectures being worked on.



Advice: So, what are you waiting for. Read my other Blogs. They are equally good and informative though they may be old. But, the knowledge there is never old. 

Android Go users get the dedicated night mode in Google Camera Go

This is a big surprise for old and low end phone users. If they are currently owning a phone with Android Go, which google made to be installed on the lowest end of the smartphone so that they could be best optimized and the user could get the best experience from the phones, update the default Camera app which must be names Google Camera Go because Google has added a dedicated night mode in the latest update. Pixel smartphones (Google created smartphones) have always been praised for their image and video quality in every situation they are put into. Though, they may not have 108 MP cameras like other flagships have, their photos always outperform any other phones camera in the market in many aspects (may not be details which is obviously higher in cameras with greater MP). Pixel phones are much optimized to work with primarily and the software optimizations for the camera google does in their phones is in another world. Yes, this same optimization or even a part of it, Google has provided for free to Android Go users. Though, this may not compete Pixel smartphones which are much better optimized, they will certainly outperform other 3rd party or stock camera apps from Companies like Redmi, Realme, etc.

Cherries on the cake: Google might also introduce HDR feature in the app in near future which will allow the camera to take great detailed images on even the most complex scenes consisting of brightest and darkest of images at a single frame.

 


Advice: If you are not an Android Go user but want to use Google’s camera, then obviously check out for GCAM which with the help of many people have been released for other devices too. If, its available for your device, I bet, it will make a huge difference in the image quality.

 

Q\N of the week: What is bottlenecking and why is it important to care about?

IN Short: Bottlenecking is a phenomenon where a certain component in a PC is so slow that it restricts other components from being fully utilized. Please consider bottleneck a major aspect before buying/building any computer device (sometimes applicable even beyond computer devices.)

Ok, so basics of basics, we know a computer has to perform many operations to complete even a simple task. Many components are involved here. On any given task, a secondary storage(SS) (HDDs or SSDs), a primary storage(PS) (RAM), a Central Processing Unit(CPU) (microprocessor or commonly a processor) and Graphics Processing Unit(GPU) (commonly a graphics card) are mostly utilized. The SS provides huge Raw Data to PS which stores them and provides to CPU which then executes one by one as desired by the application and GPU displays the results in the monitor (in most primary tasks). Now, imagine the SS has provided the data to PS, PS has also provided the data to CPU but CPU has not finished its last work given. What will happen? Yes, you guessed it right, the RAM can’t send data to CPU making RAM usage 0% and the GPU will also be utilized 0% though the task is not completed since its waiting for CPU to do the task it has to display. It occurred because CPU was much slower than other components. This phenomenon is CPU bottleneck.Refer to image for clearer representation.



Similar thing can happen with GPU, if it is slow, CPU might have already finished processing future data while GPU has not even completed the earlier works. This phenomenon is called a GPU bottleneck.

Now, Let’s dive into some real world examples. And I bet you must have seen this at least once in your life. Let’s take an example two Gaming PCs sellers are providing you with the specs as follows (Most basic specs):

PC1:

CPU: i9-10900k (most expensive Gaming CPU worth $500)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (Worth $55)

RAM: (2x16)32 Gb DDR4 3200Mhz Crucial RAM (Worth $130)

SSD: 1Tb Samsung 970 Eva (Worth $150)

Total Cost: $835

PC1:

CPU: i5-9400f (worth $130)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 super (Worth $380)

RAM: (2x16)32 Gb DDR4 3200Mhz Crucial RAM (Worth $130)

SSD: 1Tb Samsung 970 Evo (Worth $150)

Total Cost: $795

Now, which would you choose? By looking at the price, most people will blindly go with PC1. But, because, bottleneck *exists you will still get far worse performance/ frame rates in PC1. I mean huge difference for instance you can’t run Red Dead Redemption 2 on lowest settings at 30 FPS on first one while you can get Ultra settings >30FPS on PC2. So, bottleneck must be considered



Now, let’s go complex. While gaming is an average task demanding almost equal CPU and GPU power in most cases which makes bottleneck calculation easy (General rule is buy GPU with 1.9x the price of you CPU, General only) but what if we consider other things. There are different scenarios for different contexts. Like for programming, CPU needs to be more powerful than CPU that comes with in a Gaming PC. For 3d designing / animating, GPU needs to be more powerful than GPU that is paired with the same CPU in a gaming PC. Similarly, for high resolution Photo / Video Editing, you need more RAM and faster RAM.

Speaking of faster RAM, yes you have bottlenecks of all other stuffs including RAM, monitor, Storage device, and every component that is attached. It is because every component has to do its part while performing a task. An example of monitor bottleneck might include you are processing games at 240 FPS but playing at 60FPS because your monitor is 60 Hz because of which you still pay more for your PC than a person whose computer is processing the Game at 144 FPS and displaying also at 144FPS.

So, you must recognize the right components for your needs while buying/ creating a PC so that there is minimum bottleneck and you get the most out of all the components and your money.

Image Credits:

https://morioh.com/p/3565170b3777

https://gamerant.com/call-duty-modern-warfare-file-size-250gb-ssd/

https://mein-mmo.de/rtx-3090-viel-speicher-spiele-drauf-installieren/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/10/05/google-camera-go-update-brings-night-mode-photography-to-low-end-phones/

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2015-04/22/content_20507368.htm

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/161637074116693894/

 

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