There are regular PC users, and then there are gaming PC users. I play a lot of PC games, and I've experienced things most other PC users haven't, like constantly coping with low FPS, managing CPU and GPU temperatures, moving around the backlog of unplayed games to make space for new ones, and dealing with in-game voice chats that are woefully terrible. To help you out, here are six free apps that every PC gamer should use to make things run a bit more smoothly.

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 20, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, welcome, hi, what’s up, how are you, welcome to the gang, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) It’s our first issue of 2024, a number that still feels deeply strange to type — hope you had a good holiday and a nice break! I spent most of mine sick and then caring for a sick kid, which meant a lot of Elmo and The Office and trying as ever to beat my high score in Holedown.This week, I’ve also been reading about crypto farms and AI influencers and Tara Reid, breaking in my new Instant Pot air fryer (send me recipes!), poring over Matt Mullenweg’s annual “What’s in My Bag” post,... Continue reading…

Of course, it has to get FDA clearance first. | Image: Withings Withings always shows up to CES with a futuristic health tech device in tow, and this year is no different. The company’s latest gadget is the $249.95 BeamO, a so-called multiscope that measures your temperature, takes electrocardiograms, reads blood oxygen levels, and works as a stethoscope to monitor heart and lung health. The device itself resembles some of Withings’ other contactless thermometers, but it contains photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors, electrodes, a digital stethoscope, and a second-gen version of the infrared temperature sensor in the Withings Thermo. You’re probably more familiar with PPG sensors as the green LED you find in most smartwatches that measures heart rate by shining light into the skin. The sides of the... Continue reading…

The Verge Longtime iOS podcasts app Castro has been down since Friday and its website no longer exists a month after the team behind Castro denied rumors that the app was shutting down. Users started reporting on Friday that they’re unable to download new episodes or access Castro’s website. When The Verge reached out to the contacts that were listed on Castro’s site, all of our emails were returned as undeliverable because the domain could not be found.A Friday Reddit post is full of replies from people unable to use significant parts of the app, and recent reviews from its listing on the iOS App Store tell the same story. When we downloaded the app to verify, we were unable to connect to Castro’s servers to find shows to listen to. The app has... Continue reading…

22-degree rotation in macOS: a concept image. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge On Windows and Mac, you can rotate your monitor 90 degrees, or even 180 degrees if you’re a vampire, but that’s it. Well, macOS lets you pick 270 degrees, too, but that’s just 90 degrees in the other direction, so don’t get too excited. Linux, on the other hand, has no problem with chaos, so you can rotate your display to any degree you’d like. Tom’s Hardware published a story about this in late December, pointing to a blog from a developer called xssfox, who said there was one perfect monitor rotation for developers, and it’s not the regular landscape view, nor is it portrait, AKA 90-degree rotation. 22 degrees, they insisted, is perfect — at least on an ultrawide display. This, they said, is because it “provides the longest line... Continue reading…

It’s a ceiling light, it’s a speaker, it’s a projector, it’s the Xgimi Aladdin. | Image: Xgimi Xgimi has two new projectors for the US, its brightest ever 4K smart projector and a 3-in-1 unit that’s also a ceiling light and Bluetooth speaker. Both long-throw projectors run Google TV.Xgimi says its 4K Horizon Max can produce 3,100 ISO Lumens from its “Dual Light 2.0” laser and LED hybrid light source. It’s worth noting, however, that Xgimi has admitted to overstating brightness scores by as much as 27 percent in the past — something it corrected only after facing a lawsuit from Epson. Its brightness, coupled with the projector’s reported contrast (2000:1), DTS audio support, and color accuracy earned the Horizon Max an IMAX Enhanced certification. That means it can play IMAX Enhanced content from Disney Plus and other streaming... Continue reading…

The Predator Z57 is very wide. | Image: Acer Acer announced a few gaming displays ahead of CES 2024 today, but the star of its new lineup is clearly its Predator Z57 — a 57-inch, 120Hz curved display that spans 7680x2160 pixels. It uses MiniLED backlighting for better contrast than a typical LCD monitor, and Acer says it will be out in the second quarter for $2,499.99 in the US and €2,399 in Europe. The Z57 will come equipped with AMD FreeSync Premium to reduce screen-tearing and gets a 90W USB-C PD port, dual HDMI 2.1 ports, and a single DisplayPort 1.3 port, as well as a built-in KVM switch for using multiple devices with it. Acer says it has 2,304 dimming zones and HDR, with 1,000-nit peak brightness. It’ll also show video from multiple sources at once, using picture-in-picture... Continue reading…

Verge Motorcycles’ 360-degree sensors could make the wild TS Ultra safer than anything else on two wheels. Continue reading…

Gaming is a bigger hobby than ever, and sharing your best moments with the world is something many of us want to do. But it can be hard to find the right software to record or stream your games, even though there's no shortage of options. To help you pick the right one, we've tested a wide range of options from the more basic to the more advanced, and we've rounded up the ones you're bound to love the most.

As you may know, not all the latest Macs offer integrated webcams. While the MacBook Pro (M3, 2023) has one, other models like the Mac Studio don't. Furthermore, the webcams included in MacBooks may not cater to those seeking higher-quality streams, as they are somewhat basic, and their resolutions aren't the best. As a result, you may find yourself needing to buy a dedicated webcam for your Mac to make the most out of the advanced video conferencing tools introduced in macOS Sonoma. To help you find a suitable pick, we've listed some of the best Mac webcams below.

The Air 2 Ultra bring back full-fledged tracking capabilities. | Image: Xreal Augmented reality company Xreal has revealed a new entry in its Air glasses lineup: the $699 Air 2 Ultra. The Air 2 Ultra glasses, which developers can preorder today for shipment starting in March, are ultimately meant to compete with Meta’s Quest 3 and Apple’s Vision Pro headsets. They’re more full-featured than the $399 Air 2 model that Xreal — formerly Nreal — launched late last year, offering full positional (six degrees of freedom, or 6DOF) tracking in Xreal’s typical sunglasses-style form factor. That makes them ripe for not just watching TV or playing flat-screen games on a projected screen but also running immersive AR apps, which is exactly what Xreal hopes developers will do with them.Xreal pitches the Air 2 Ultra as a... Continue reading…

This kind of 3D effect is hard to capture in photos, but trust me, the astronaut was popping out of that screen. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Despite the pictures, I solemnly swear that, in person, that astronaut on the new Acer Aspire 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition was reaching their arms out to me. I’ve rolled my eyes at 3D displays before, but this time, it looked so realistic that I poked the astronaut’s tummy like it was the Pillsbury Doughboy. I wasn’t wearing glasses, and the whole thing was equal parts weird and cool. That’s exactly the sort of thing you expect to see at CES 2024 on some far-out, high-end concept tech, but this 3D laptop is coming out next month for around the same price as a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air. To be fair, $1,399 for a laptop isn’t nothing — especially when you consider that’s the starting price. However, it’s pretty dang affordable as far as Acer’s... Continue reading…