If you're in the market for a pricey, studio-like USB microphone for high-quality audio capture, you've probably considered one of Shure's offerings. You'd do well to look at the Shure MV7+, a dynamic podcast mic that's cemented itself into our best microphone for gaming guide for some time now. Razer, however, has come up with something that might not beat the MV7+ outright, but certainly gives it something to think about.

It's called the Razer Seiren V3 Pro, and it retails for $250/£250. That's around $40-45 cheaper than the MV7+ at current prices, and while the V3 Pro isn't quite able to deliver the same ultra-refined, smooth vocal capture, it's got a lot going for it in terms of sheer flexibility.

It's more usable in a desktop position, for a start. You also get access to an AI noise reduction feature, a noise gate, a compressor, and a parametric EQ with plenty of well-tuned presets. There's also an auto setup feature, which I had some real trouble with. I'd say it was better ignored, or if needed, used to provide a rough baseline you can tweak for yourself later.

Still, many great vocal tones can be pulled from this particular unit—albeit with a touch of fiddling. It's got a tendency towards a detailed capture, but still reveals the odd rough edge that takes a little tweaking to filter out. But with the flexibility on offer here, the V3 Pro makes a good case for itself as a versatile vocal mic.

It's not quite on the Shure's level when it comes to finding that podcast-like, streaming friendly, studio-grade sound. But it's a jack-of-all-trades with a lot to offer, provided you're prepared to put a little time into it.

Razer Seiren V3 Pro features

The Razer Seiren V3 Pro is a dynamic microphone, which means it's not as sensitive as a traditional desktop condenser mic. You'll need to move some air in the near vicinity to get the most out of it, although unlike the Shure MV7+, Razer has included a screw-in stand base to allow it to function as a desktop mic straight from the box.

It makes use of a 30 mm dynamic capsule with a frequency response of 50 - 16,000 Hz, and supports audio capture up to a 32-bit/96 kHz resolution, along with 32-bit float support through a Razer Synapse setting. This format technically allows for higher peaks without clipping or distortion.

Do you need 32-bit float support? Probably not. But Razer says it's perfect for streamers who speak quietly, and then suddenly yell at… I don't know, something jumping out of a cupboard in a horror game.

The Seiren V3 Pro is a dual-connectivity mic, with an XLR socket and USB Type-C port integrated into the bottom of the chassis, although you can't use both at once. In terms of controls, you get a manual gain control wheel on the bottom, and a large tap-to-mute button on the top.

Around the bottom of the foam pop filter is a tastefully small ring of RGB Chroma lighting, and the microphone itself is attached to an adjustable one-sided arm with a ⅝-inch boom arm socket in the bottom.

It's a good-looking, professional-feeling object, with a chunky, overbuilt design that underscores its "Pro" moniker. If I had one ergonomic critique, I'd say the pop filter is a touch loose in terms of fit, which means it has a tendency to slip slightly out of position at certain angles. Mind you, some Shure mics have the same problem, and I've not had it fall off entirely under testing, so it's not a huge deal.

Razer Seiren V3 Pro sound

I'll go more into the Seiren V3 Pro's auto setup option in the software section below, but as a quick note: It's far from perfect. However, the microphone itself is a well-equipped unit, and the manual software options work fairly well. The clips below were recorded with custom settings, rather than auto setup:

Desktop position

In a desktop position, it's also rather quiet—which is to be expected from a dynamic microphone. I had to boost the gain settings to record the clip above, with a dose of compression and some AI noise cancelling to even out the volume and remove some unwanted nasties. The noise gate is a touch aggressive, which means I had to set it fairly low and allow some background hiss to remain in the final desktop-position take.

Close-up position

Still, Razer advertises this mic as delivering "studio sound", and while it takes a little fiddling in the software to get there, the close-up results sound very good indeed. The desktop position audio is also perfectly decent, if a touch noisy. It can do both, but being a dynamic microphone, it still likes being close to your lips for those toasty tones.

I'd say what we're dealing with here is a good-quality capsule that leans towards detail, with the EQ presets and software features richening things up. There's nothing wrong with that, but the Shure MV7+ sounds like a higher-quality unit from the get-go.

Razer Seiren V3 Pro software

Razer has made a pretty big deal of this mic's auto-setup feature, so I was curious to see what it made of my quiet living room in a desktop position. Upon connecting the mic for the first time, Synapse asks you to speak normally into the microphone to record a test clip, before taking a sample of the room ambience to adjust the noise-cancelling features.

It then asks you to pick a primary purpose, such as streaming, podcasting, gaming capture, etc, before adjusting all of its own settings.

Which, in my case, led to an overly-aggressive noise gate that clipped my voice so badly that every other word was missed out in my first test clip. Oh dear. Trying again, it seems that the auto setup gets very confused with my particular use case, with the mic placed 10 -15 cm away from my mouth next to a window with occasional traffic.

Desktop position, auto settings

Despite having a very good compressor, AI noise suppression, and the aforementioned noise gate to play with, the auto setup struggled to find a good gain level, set the gate far too aggressively, and chose to ignore the compressor and AI noise suppression sliders entirely. Which again resulted in an uneven sound with plenty of words being cut off.

Close-up, auto settings

Still, with a bit of tweaking (essentially, I fiddled with the noise gate settings until it stopped cutting off the start of my words, gave it a gain boost, and compensated with AI noise suppression and a touch of compression), the Razer captures a rich vocal tone overall, as you can hear in the Sound section above.

However, the auto setup feature regularly makes mistakes in terms of its settings choices, which is likely to leave many users scratching their heads. It's a nice idea on paper, but in practice, I'd leave it well alone.

Top marks, however, go to the parametric EQ presets. I leapt straight to the "podcast" setting and was presented with an EQ curve that looked very familiar. I've done some podcast audio engineering in a previous life, and Razer's EQ curve looks… well, it looks very much like one of mine. Which is obviously the best podcast EQ you'll ever find, of course.

You can tweak the EQ around to your heart's content, but each of Razer's default options is a pretty good start. I've noticed a tendency to boost the bass frequencies in each preset with a sharp drop-off in terms of sub-bass, which is often good practice when hunting for a 'rich' sound. Still, as noted above, it's the EQ that's doing a lot of the work on what is otherwise a good, but not mind-blowing capsule.

But overall? The software design is fairly straightforward, as long as you're prepared to do some of the work yourself. I wish the auto setup was better when it comes to some of its settings choices, but there are enough options here to easily correct its mistakes.

Razer Seiren V3 Pro value

At $250, the Razer Seiren V3 Pro is far from cheap. However, it is cheap-er than the Shure MV7+, and finds itself shooting for the same target market. Namely, those who want a near-studio-level microphone for semi-pro streaming audio.

The problem is, the Shure microphone is simply better at performing that goal, at least in a close-up position. While it's a chonkier unit and less versatile, its key selling point is the plug-and-play nature of both its software and its internal hardware.

I've spent half a lifetime screwing around with audio settings, and the Shure MV7+ is so darn good at finding a professional sound with the minimum of tweaks, I consider it the be-all and end-all of semi-pro vocal mics. I had hoped that the Razer's auto-setup feature would close that gap, but unfortunately it had me hunting through the settings at multiple points during testing.

That being said, the Seiren V3 Pro is a very capable microphone once you've tweaked it for yourself. It also looks great and has a chassis design that oozes refinement. And, despite its flaws, I think its sonic characteristics (after the requisite effort) make it worth considering. Particularly if you plan on mixing things up between desktop and close-up positions.

Just leave the auto setup well alone, yes?

Between online video calls, streaming, content creating, and messing with music, I really appreciate a good microphone for my PC setup. Once upon a time I'd be hard pressed to find a high-quality USB mic, but with many gamer brands stepping into the space great PC mics have become more commonplace.

What I haven't seen before is an exceptional quality PC mic that can also switch over to XLR interface for analogue use like Rode's NT1 5th generation release.

Rode may not be super familiar to gamers, but for those into music production and other content creation, the brand is a household name. Known for putting out excellent recording options, Rode has often been revered as delivering audiophile quality, often a bit cheaper than some of the other contending brands like Sony. The NT1 5th Generation microphone is yet another example of this, but in a mic that's so flexible you can use it for basically anything you can dream of.

Unboxing the mic is a neat experience as it's immediately obvious by the heft that this is a premium product, which you'd want for $259 USD. There's a lot more metal than I'm used to, including an aluminium body and full mesh over the actual mic portion.

The box also includes a shock mount, pop filter, and USB C and XLR cables that are thicker than the oceans (seven Cs) so it's usable straight out of the box. There's no stand, but it'll work with the standard threading for anything you already own. I've also had success on a box with a hole cut out for the cable and simply holding the mic.

The first thing I noticed when recording is how low the sound floor is on this microphone. Being a large-diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone, it is designed to pick up every little noise, but I also realised that my voice wasn't coming across as much louder than many ambient noises around me. Still I was impressed with the plug and playability across every device I tried it with. This noise gate issue isn't ideal for things like streaming but that's where Rode's free software comes in.

While there are no controls on the microphone itself, when plugged in via USB you get access to extra functionality through the free Rode Central app. This lets you set a gain input to raise the volume so your voice is crystal clear as well as manage the high pass filter to get rid of those background noises and it works a treat. Using it I managed to get my stream sounding like this in only a few tweaks.

Rode offers a few other apps to do even more, but for most this is probably all you'll need to play with. Though, after all this tampering I was worried about clipping, but that's another thing this mic handles wonderfully.

As low as the sound floor is, the ceiling appears to be just as high with a frequency range from 20Hz to 20kHz which outdoes our current fav mic the Shure MV6. Rode boasts that the NT1 5th Gen is an unclippable mic, and under the right circumstances they might be right. It's pretty hard to make this thing clip without the gain turned up a fair bit. If you're using Rode's suite of apps you can even recover sounds when this happens or alter them. The pop filter and mount also do a great job of keeping harsh sounds away, and the microphone itself is dead quiet which makes for very clean recordings.

This is partially because of high quality the recordings are, but also just thanks to the classic sound this mic offers. It really does have a lovely warm tone to it, which has been loved by singers since Rode started offering the NT1 mic. This same timbre applies to spoken voice, so if you're a streamer who values the tone of your talk, this will likely bring out the best in it. Though it's worth noting there's no native mute button on the physical mic, so you may need to setup a digital option.

The lack of on-mic controls seems odd, but it's because this isn't a mic designed for PC gaming, it just happens to be one that works excellently with it.

Instead, this mic is designed to be plugged into other things that control it which can take some setting up, but it also allows you to take this mic to different projects with different settings held to the computer, rather than accidentally layering things onto the microphone. It keeps it clean, so when you take this mic to a gig and plug it in via XLR you don't have to worry about your gamer settings getting in the way.

It does mean this isn't the right choice for many gamers. Most would be fine with something a fraction of the price like the budget friendly Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone or even a midrange option like NZXT's Capsule Elite.

But if you're a gamer who in any way dabbles in other content creation this could be the answer for you. It's a steep price difference, but the NT1 5th Gen almost feels like getting multiple mics in one package. By no means does it seem unfair for a studio quality mic with massive range, a fair bit of customisation, and the ability to use it wherever you want.

Vtubers are a phenomenon that has intrigued and perplexed me over the years. Cards on the table, I do enjoy the odd Ironmouse song (I've had Cry for Me WA WA WA consistently in my rotation since it dropped), but I'm hardly an expert. The tech often intrigues me more than the personalities—and now that a YouTuber has seemingly created the best Vtuber rig ever, I think I'm about to become the anime cat girl of my dreams.

Before I start shopping for 3D artists and riggers to commission, let me back up a bit. Rather than using AI to track a body in space, DIY hardware creator Made By Dennis went all in on optical motion capture, setting out to build 'Hollywood Motion Capture from Scratch' (via Hackaday). Obviously, this technique is also heavily used in games, as you can see in the behind-the-scenes of God of War Laufey, where they did motion capture on a cube.

Actor Jack Quaid's obvious professionalism aside, Made By Dennis briefly explains how multiple cameras are used in a mocap setup to track retroreflective markers through space via a process called Triangulation. Those multiple mocap cameras are often pretty pricey, but the YouTuber ends up making their own from scratch for less than $200 each.

Made by Dennis deploys a number of DIY touches to cut costs. Each camera uses the relatively inexpensive monochrome variant of the AR0234 sensor. As these cameras are going to be paired with an infrared light ring and only used to track highly reflective white dots wiggling around in space, a monochrome sensor makes sense for capturing clean motion data. Using one of these teeny tiny sensors has the added perk of pairing well with the cheap, mass-produced lenses made for surveillance cameras. The 6.8 mm sensor, plus this lens, costs about $40 total.

The YouTuber struggled to find an appropriate board to pair with the monochrome sensor for a price that wasn't heavily marked up—so they ended up simply designing and making their own PCBs. Okay, I may need to put my Vtuber plans on hold while I go back to Design Tech class…either that or I crib from the PCB design Made by Dennis has shared via their GitHub.

These cameras are only one small part of the entire project, with Made by Dennis also going on to explain how images captured by the 16 budget cameras can then be processed into precise motion data. That's a little over my head, but Made by Dennis has also shared their own custom solution on GitHub, and they say it's 300 times faster than the leading open-source option, OpenCV.

As open source projects go, this is definitely one of the most labour-intensive builds I've seen in a bit. But considering you get an IR camera rig that captures 4 billion pixels per second at 240 fps, capable of capturing motion data with a less than 0.5 mm margin for error, I could maybe be persuaded to pick up the soldering iron (not to mention hassle my buddy with the 3D printer). Alternatively, Made By Dennis is also scoping out demand for prebuilt versions of the IR cameras via this Google Form. With tariffs and so on factored in, each individual camera would cost around $300—that would be one way to support an independent creator.

With the RAMpocalypse doing its very best to ruin PC gaming, with memory and storage now ludicrously expensive, the handheld market has struggled to keep things affordable. Acer's solution to all this is simple: bin everything needed to play games locally, and just make a streaming device instead.

Officially called the Nitro Blaze Link, Acer's newest handheld joins the rest of the Blaze lineup. But where they're all packed with a punchy little AMD Ryzen 8000-series APU, lots of NVMe storage and fast DRAM, the Blaze Link is essentially a 'dead' box. You won't be playing any games locally, because it only has 1 GB of memory and 8 GB of eMMC storage for its Linux operating system, according to PC Mag.

Naturally, with such little gubbins in the Link, there's not much to say about specifications. The display is a 7-inch touchscreen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, though there's no word on its refresh rate. I can see no word as to what chip is powering the device, but that doesn't really matter, and at least it has Wi-Fi 6E support.

Since there's no APU with lots of fast DRAM, nor a speedy SSD, power demands are pretty low, hence why it only has an 18 Wh battery. This also explains its 464 grams (16 ounces) weight, but it should also hopefully mean the fans are near-silent for the most part.

So far, so good, but there is one major caveat with the Blaze Link: It will only work with a compatible Acer laptop and the company's own streaming ecosystem. Apparently, it will use Sunshine and Moonlight to handle the streaming. It might work with other streaming systems, but Acer is unlikely to help you out in that respect.

Since you can only use the Blaze Link on the same wireless network that your main Acer gaming PC is connected to, you won't be using the new handheld on your travels. However, for a sneaky bit of gaming in bed, or on the couch away from your den, it could actually be quite nice to use.

After all, the fact that Sony's PlayStation Portal is streaming-only didn't exactly hurt its sales, and it's obvious that Acer is hoping for the same kind of success. Naturally, it will all come down to what Acer sets the price tag at, and we won't know that until we're nearer the device's launch window towards the end of the year.

It's the 21st century, which means—er, well, all sorts of existential horrors. But it also means that the media landscape, a term I typically shudder to use but is genuinely applicable here, has changed. A lot of the younger generations get their news from social media and streaming platforms, including online personalities—and archetypically, the government is behind the times.

Well, New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who is NYC's first gamer mayor (finally, some representation) will be streaming regularly on Twitch. What's more, the news has broken via an exclusive on Polygon. The future is now.

The series, dubbed "Talk With the People", will begin May 21 on Twitch as well as other streaming platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, at 4 pm EDT / 9 pm BST. Mamdani told Polygon:

"With the launch of 'Talk with the People' we’re bringing City Hall to the platforms where New Yorkers already are—speaking directly with the people, "By launching the country’s first recurring cross-platform stream hosted by an elected official, where I’ll answer New Yorkers’ questions live on Twitch, we’re opening up a direct line of conversation between our government and the people, especially younger generations who’ve been ignored for too long."

The name is based on "Talk to the People", a radio show by former New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia during his term—it aired from 1941 to 1945, and the parallel Mamdani is drawing are relatively obvious.

The WNYC only started operating in 1924, just 20 years prior to Guardia's use of it. Given the internet took off in the late '90s-early 2000s, the period of time between widespread use of the tech and a NYC Mayor using it to speak to the public is pleasingly familiar.

And hey, listen. If the current US president can have his own social media platform or gold phone or cryptocurrency or whatever, I think Mamdani using Twitch to talk to young people is eminently reasonable. He might have to brush up on his gamer metaphors, but I'm all for it—the only question is what category it'll be considered on Twitch.

I mean, it's "Just Chatting", right? Unless Mamdani wants to surprise the nation with a no-hit saxophone speedrun of Elden Ring, which I imagine would make him leader of the free world by default.

GrammaCrackers, an 81-year-old Minecraft streamer raising money for her grandson's cancer treatment, fell victim to a swatting recently, with numerous police cars, SWAT trucks, and officers appearing at her home as she slept (via TheGamer).

"I was asleep," recounted the streamer in a video posted after the experience. "And these policemen came in the door… and the cop walked me out, and I didn't know what was going on." In a photo from the streamer's Ring doorbell camera, three armoured police officers can be seen standing around her door.

Although swatting—the act of placing a fake 911 call in order to get police to dispatch armed SWAT officers to someone's home—is a monumentally nasty and dangerous practice which can result in people getting killed, GrammaCrackers is relatively phlegmatic about her experience. "It was kind of fun. It was!" said the streamer.

"My grandkid and my kid, they were hugging me—you know, you can't get that much attention normally. I was getting all kinds of hugs, I was really eating it up! It was kind of fun."

The streamer was briefly detained by officers as the situation was worked out: "I got to ride in a police car to my apartment, and then it was all over. So I thought, 'Well, I gotta go to bed.' So I took an ibuprofen and went to bed."

Per the recollection of GrammaCrackers' family, the police arrived in full force, with 20 police cars, five SWAT vehicles, and drones flying over her house. "I have never had that much attention in my life," laughed the streamer.

Which is, you have to admit, a very charming and funny response to the situation, but it's worth remembering how easily the whole thing could have resulted in a horrible tragedy, as these things have before. GrammaCrackers continues to stream, and is live (though away from her keyboard), at the time of writing.

Though I have a lot to say about it from a technical perspective, I don't think I have that much to say about the Razer Kiyo V2. That's because, after testing tons of 4K webcams, it's pretty middling. Its quality is worse than the more expensive DLSR-like Yolocam S3 but better than the value-oriented Obsbot Meet 2. It doesn't have the flashy ring light of the first Razer Kiyo (for the better), but in doing so, I think it struggles to have a unique pull in an already pretty strong market. It does have ultrawide, but to some, that's an upside and to others, a downside.

In fairness, with a digital zoom in Razer Synapse, you don't have to use it in ultrawide mode, but then swapping to a more traditional zoom means taking a hit to the quality of the Kiyo V2.

But what the Kiyo does, it does well. It's a solid 4K webcam with a strong aesthetic, and, importantly, it's relatively plug-and-play. You need a USB 3.0 cable to get 4K (there is a colour-matched one in the box), but once set up, you barely need to touch its settings to get a solid picture and video quality.

Just because it's good out of the box doesn't mean it won't benefit from software, though. The Kiyo V2's HDR modes are well worth enabling, offering a greater depth of colour. Compared to the similarly priced Insta360 Link 2C, the Kiyo V2 is brighter with its HDR mode on, and a bit crisper too, with strands of hair being more well-defined. I'd say the former is closer to 'real-life', but the V2's image looks prettier, so that's more a matter of preference.

I'd say the Kiyo V2 is less cinematic than the Yolocam S3, with a less pronounced bokeh effect, but, out of the box, it offers better colour and light correction. It has a super solid auto exposure and some visual noise reduction, so when Razer says the Kiyo V2 'makes 4K intelligent', I get why. Its AI-enabled features actually feel useful, and it's not trying to generate AI scripts or get me to talk to it like the Insta 360 Link 2C or Obsbot Tiny 3. Its quality is less sharp than the S3, but it makes up for it with sheer intuitiveness.

I recently had the chance to test out the Razer Kiyo V2 X, and the V2 solves many of my problems with it. First is autofocus. The V2 performs admirably here, comfortably snapping onto a face or a product in my hand in mere moments. I'd say it's not quite as quick as the Obsbot Tiny series for autofocus, but still faster than most will ever need.

Second is lighting. The Kiyo V2 can make out the tones of my face in low-light environments with ease. It does hyperfocus on the face, losing some clarity on the background, but that's more or less what you'd need in a call lit by the glow of your monitor. It also handles a lot of light well, and HDR comes with both a light and dark room mode, allowing its software to account for both situations.

Another improvement over the V2 X is that the V2 comes with a detachable cable. This did mean the first time I brought it to the PC Gamer office, I couldn't use it in 4K as I was missing an appropriate cable, but technically, any USB 3.0 cable will work if you have it (and the ports ).

It's all well-built, too. It's sturdy and comes with threading at the bottom to pop onto a stand. It also comes with a built-in privacy filter, where you can simply spin a dial around the lens to close it. Because the stand is sturdy, closing the filter doesn't even make the webcam shake too much. I like this a lot. It's tidy, handy, and satisfying.

You just see a lot at one time, so much so that you might need to clean up more of your room if you are used to non-ultrawide webcams prior to now. Despite offering more of the screen, it doesn't come across distorted in the process. I could make out the texture of my hair well, and its up to 4x zoom doesn't perform too badly either.

The clamping force of the stand is very light, so you can't angle the whole thing down, but the cam does have a swivel to look down, which more or less makes up for it. With its ultrawide lens, you likely won't need to mess with the view very often, though.

As far as the microphone is concerned, I'd say it performs well. There's some filtering going on from a software perspective, which helps make the mic a little clearer, and I'd say it's perfectly good quality for a standard call.

One thing well worth mentioning here, though, is that the Emeet Pixy has seemingly seen a permanent price cut on Amazon down to $100. And, though I'd pick the Kiyo V2's sensor, I certainly wouldn't pay $50 more for it. But, when compared to usual 4K webcam prices, I'd say the Kiyo V2 fits in with my expectations. It's not climbing up to Obsbot Tiny prices, but it is more than the Obsbot Meet 2 and the aforementioned Pixy.

I mentioned in my Kiyo V2 X review that the webcam feels a little late. Two years ago, $100 for a decent enough 1440p webcam would have been fine, but in 2026, that feels like a harder sale. Though to a far lesser degree, I think this is true of the V2 as well. It doesn't do anything all that wrong, but the webcam market is vast and varied, and getting strong 4K capture at a solid price is no longer tough.

Despite being a little boring (outside of its pretty pink shell), the Razer Kiyo V2 is something I'm glad exists in the current 4K webcam market, though. That's because more webcams sitting in the middle of the pack is good for the end consumer. It gives more choice, and ultimately, more competition.

At retail, the Kiyo V2 seems reasonably priced, though nothing special, but getting more solid webcam choices will certainly make the sales better when they come. And that is where I could see the V2 mopping up. As long as its competition doesn't beat it to the punch.

If you've ever played one of FromSoftware's oeuvre in front of another Souls fan, you already know what a scourge backseat gaming is. Now imagine you're a streamer playing in front of thousands of folks who are convinced they know better than you. Well, one streaming fan has created a lightweight tool that allows backseat gamers to prove on-stream they're as good as they say.

Vtuber girl_dm_ recently showcased the aforementioned in-browser tool during a Dark Souls 2 stream. The streamer explained on X that the tool "takes a clone of my latest save and gives a chatter eight minutes to show me what they want me to do." The result is then broadcast live, picture-in-picture style, to her adoring audience.

Called 'backseatNOW 9000,' the tool was made by one of the Vtuber's community members, and works without the viewer needing to download anything extra. Girl_dm_ explains, "It’s essentially pulling my save info, putting it to the host computer (which is running a legal copy of the game), and [allows] the chatter to remotely play for their limited session—it's Temu Google Stadia with a browser source viewer for me as the streamer."

For those who may have forgotten, Google Stadia launched in 2019 and promised a game streaming revolution. The subscription-based service offered playable games streamed over the internet without the need for pricey hardware. Its streaming library included both big-budget blowouts, titles exclusive to the platform, and limited time demos, but the service ultimately shuttered in 2023.

As game streaming services live or die by the stability of the user's internet connection, many of Stadia's big promises about cloud-gaming were left largely unrealised.

But let's get back to the 'Temu Stadia' setup, which also has its own techy quirks. For one thing, mouse and keyboard controls are currently not an option. For another, a backseat gamer will need to lock their mouse to play. You're also slightly limited in what controller you can use to backseat, as the PS5's DualSense does not currently play nice with the tool.

As for streamers, the tool does require more than a bit of setup. For instance, girl_dm_ uses Streamer.Bot and a Blackmagic streaming encoder for her fairly complex, interactive streams.

This also wouldn't be much of a tool for streamers without some basic community management features. To begin with, would-be backseaters can only log in to the tool via unique credentials that girl_dm_ sends herself, and which are only valid for their eight-minute session. Anyone attempting to hijack the stream via the tool gets a chat timeout for a week.

Hiccoughs and setup aside, the implementation of the tool is pretty elegant. I know my introduction suggested something a little more ego-based and competitive, but it's way more positive in practice.

Souls games are known for being labyrinthine in structure, with many easily missed secrets along the way. This tool allows experienced Dark Souls 2 gamers to guide first-time player girl_dm_ to the coolest corners of Drangleic, and serves as a shining example of the community at its best. Now, I wonder how backseat gamers will fare with that Dark Souls 2 path tracing mod.

There's a good argument to be made that 1440p webcams are almost as niche as 4K ones. A webcam has a specific purpose (fitting on your monitor and letting your meeting participants/gamer buddies see you), and if you end up paying enough, it almost just makes sense to go for something dedicated instead.

At least with the $150-$200 range of webcams, like the Yololiv YoloCam S3 or Obsbot Tiny 3 Lite, you could feasibly use it for a video, should you want to. However, for me, many 1440p webcams are too expensive to just use for a Zoom call, and not quite good enough quality for the higher price point.

Razer's Kiyo all-white V2 X certainly looks nice, but at $100, it is practically competing with the budget end of the 4K market (like the Obsbot Meet 2), so it needs to offer quite a lot to justify its price tag.

Given the Kiyo line has traditionally been good in low light, I thought that would be worth testing. The first Kiyo model comes with a built-in ring light, and the Kiyo Pro comes with a light sensor that really stood out when it was released in 2021. The V2 X, on the other hand, performs pretty poorly.

Low-light environments get a lot of visual noise, and the autofocus struggles here, too. I noticed it regularly having to readjust, which isn't a major problem given it does so relatively quickly, but it still lets down the experience somewhat.

To tackle some of the Kiyo V2 X's problems, you can use Razer's Synapse software. You can manually adjust brightness, though this isn't much different from a filter, and you can turn off the auto focus. Turning this off, though, does mean manually changing focus, which offers its own set of problems.

If you would like to adjust your webcam via Synapse, it does wrangle control from whatever other software the webcam is currently active in, which means you can't adjust settings on the fly whilst in a meeting.

Its aggressive autofocus is perhaps the most troubling part of using the V2 X. I noticed it pretty badly whilst holding a guitar, game controller near my chest, and whilst fidgeting in a meeting—if you are likely to move, it is likely to readjust with you.

Outside of this, I would say the camera's quality is solid. For a quick meeting, I certainly wouldn't complain, and at the top of a screen for a stream, its wide-angle lens offers a decent view of your space. For its price point, I think its quality is around the middle.

It's a very easy webcam to set up, with it not needing Razer's own software to get working. The V2 X has an integrated USB Type-A cable, which does mean having to lug the cable around, connected to the webcam, should you want to throw it in a backpack. Personally, I don't like connected cables as it introduces another point of failure to a piece of hardware. If the cable breaks for any reason (cat bites it, for example), you have to replace the entire webcam, rather than just the cable (and maybe the cat too).

One unique quirk of it being a 1440p webcam, specifically, is that it offers better 1440p capture than many 4K webcams, in regard to frames per second. You're getting 60 fps here, where you tend to get 30 fps from others (assuming they even offer 1440p capture). If you, for whatever reason, are specifically looking for 1440p, I can see the argument for the V2 X.

It's pretty tidy in a lot of ways, too. It clips onto monitors easily with its built-in stand, it looks great, and it even has a physical privacy shutter that you can activate by simply spinning the front of the webcam. The stand is strong enough for it not to shake when opening the privacy shutter, though the same can't be said for my monitor.

The V2 X is missing any HDR support, which is a shame as its low-light capture could certainly benefit from it. I also notice a little washing out in high-light environments (near a window, for example), though that's not particularly uncommon for a webcam.

It does come with a built-in microphone that sits just shy of the middle of the pack, quality-wise. It has little treatment or noise cancellation, so it can be a tad noisy in the wrong environment. It's certainly fine for a meeting, though, which is what you would want an integrated microphone for.

I think the price is ultimately my biggest hang-up here. The OBSBot Meet 2 is $30 more, though it regularly goes down to the Kiyo V2 X's price, and it offers stronger capture, a better autofocus, and a much cuter look. The Meet 2's weak stand does let it down, but threading on the bottom and no integrated USB cable make it easy to fit it into any setup.

This is before mentioning the likes of the Emeet Pixy, which is a 4K camera with a Sony sensor that sits on a gimbal, allowing it to track you around a room. I'm surprised to see that this nearly constantly sits around and below the Kiyo V2 X's price point. If I were in the market for a new webcam, I'd struggle to come up with many reasons at all to pick the Kiyo V2 X instead.

The Razer Kiyo V2 X, to me, feels like a webcam that would have launched a few years ago. It's certainly not actively bad in almost any way; it looks pretty good, it offers most of the basic essentials you would need from something to sit in a meeting or throw at the top of a stream. But $100 in the year of our lord 2026 can get you plenty of excellent webcam options, and the Kiyo V2 X is not interesting enough, not quality enough, and not cheap enough to beat them out.

In the last few years, I've found myself asking 'What are webcams for?' The obvious answer is meetings and online social gatherings, but I wonder how many use their ever-expanding feature set for anything more.

Yololiv shoves DSLR-quality 4K capture into its relatively small YoloCam S3, and I'm more torn on it than I thought I would be. It's clearly impressive, but also missing some features one might want for a casual meeting, and requires just a bit of fine-tuning out of the box. If you want to record a video and don't want a dedicated camera, I see the vision, but I don't know if I plan on swapping from my usual webcam-of-choice now that I've had some time with it.

At 185 g and a height of 74 mm, the Yololiv is not super bulky, and it's easy to set up. Its magnetic stand is super secure and clips onto the top of monitors with ease. It's such a strong magnet that I had to stand up to apply enough pressure to readjust it.

The quality of the camera is instantly clear. The 4K capture made me immediately start messing with my hair because it picked up a few too many rogue strands for my liking. To be clear, that's a good thing.

30 fps video is a tad low, but the norm for 4K webcams. One thing I did immediately note, though, is that it's setup for a relatively high contrast image out of the box.

In a medium-lit room, with some sunlight pouring in from a nearby window, shadows were highlighted a little more than I'm used to, and blacks felt deeper. It gives my face a darker tone than I see in other webcams.

This is all with the webcam's out-of-the-box settings. Yololiv's software is pretty solid, with its auto exposure mode fixing light flicker and adding some warmth to the lens. Its auto white balance is also usable, though I'd recommend adjusting it yourself. Turning off the vignette correction feels like the way to go, as this gives the room more brightness, though at the cost of some clarity.

That big lens and large sensor do a solid job of framing, though. I notice the background blurring well to capture me in the foreground, and I can see the purpose of this for recording YouTube videos or showing yourself on screen. Its bokeh effect makes it feel like a higher quality camera than its already strong sensor suggests.

It also has a solid autofocus, managing to pick up boxes and words in front of my face in a matter of moments. During use, the webcam gets a tad hot, though not to the point of overheating.

Two sides of the webcam have strong magnets, which means it can capture both vertical and horizontal video, and a thread on the stand means you can pop it onto a tripod should you want to. A thread on the webcam itself would have been nice too to avoid having to bring the stand, but thankfully, the stand is relatively unobtrusive anyway.

On the YoloCam S3 website, Yololive says the S3 features "possibly the largest sensor ever in a webcam," with that "possibly" doing some heavy lifting. We've seen the same size sensor in the Razer Kiyo Pro (1/1.28-inch), though it offers 1080p capture for the same price. I wouldn't say it's possibly the biggest sensor in a webcam, but I would say it's possibly the best quality video for its price point.

I don't know how much use you might get out of it, given how stationary webcams tend to be, but I'm also quite impressed by the YoloCam S3's zoom functionality. It goes all the way up to a 4x zoom, and it's a stable experience at the very max point. The biggest problem I have with its max zoom is that a slight wobble of my monitor while I type/game/browse shakes the image more than I would want.

One thing it does feel like it's missing, when it comes to everyday use, is a built-in microphone. I'm not usually expecting anything great on this front when it comes to webcams, but something built-in often means not having to bother with a full mic when I'm on a call with friends. It's a compromise Yololiv makes, and I understand why.

The YoloCam S3's biggest hurdle for most will be its price point. At $200, you have plenty of great 4K alternatives to choose from. The Tiny 3 Lite comes in at $200 and offers a gimbal with smart tracking and strong out-of-the-box performance in exchange for a worse sensor.

The Insta360 Link 2C comes in at $50 less with solid performance, and the (also Gimbal-equipped) Emeet Pixy is $40 less than the S3. The YoloCam S3 is not my favourite of the lot, but I do think it offers the highest quality image.

However, it's worth asking yourself, "Will I even use its max quality?" If the answer is "probably not", I'd recommend looking into easier-to-use webcams with more functionality.

The Tiny 3 Lite offers most users a similar experience, except it pairs it with a strong microphone and solid tracking. Many applications don't even support 4K in the first place, so it's already a niche market as is.

However, if you want the highest quality capture for $200, don't mind messing around with the settings a little, and want a near DLSR-quality image, the S3's value proposition is clear—it just sits in a very varied market, and goes shoulder to shoulder with plenty of giants.

Back in my day, I would pass the time waiting for my Sims family to load back into existence by staring out of the window and appreciating all the natural beauty that surrounded my folks' place. Not so anymore—compression tech has gotten so good that the only fronds I have time to contemplate are the polygonal progeny of SpeedTree.

One may be forgiven for thinking load times can't get much speedier, but Microsoft has released further details about a swish new GPU decompression algorithm in DirectStorage 1.4, assuring that they can. The company first released these details at GDC 2026, during the DirectX State of the Union 2026: DirectStorage and Beyond talk.

Also on Wednesday, Microsoft released a public preview of DirectStorage 1.4 and the Game Asset Conditioning Library, which now both support the Zstandard codec as an option for compressing game assets on Windows. The Zstandard codec is already widely used, but Microsoft claims that the additional support offered via the Game Asset Conditioning Library can improve asset compression ratios by up to 50%. To put it another way, noticeable texture pop-in might just be about to pop-out of existence.

Microsoft describes Zstandard (or Zstd) as "an open standard that improves compression ratios, enables faster load times, and provides smoother asset streaming for content-rich games."

DirectStorage already incorporates another compression codec, GDeflate. A collaboration between Microsoft and Nvidia, it's a similarly open-source bit of GPU compression tech that was first introduced back in DirectStorage 1.1. The first game to officially support it, by way of Nvidia's own RTX IO, was Portal: Prelude, an at the time 15-year-old mod.

Last year's Spider-Man 2 port also used the tech via DirectStorage, though arguably not well at launch. More recently, Resident Evil Requiem is one of the few games that use its GPU data decompression—though not all rigs will harness this tech, even though they're capable of it.

According to Microsoft's own benchmarks, GDeflate is still the way to go for developers wanting to let the GPU handle asset loading, but Zstd is better for CPU-intensive projects. Zstd does also offer a better compression ratio overall compared to GDeflate—but only by about 2%.

A number of different codecs were evaluated for inclusion, but "Zstd stands out by delivering competitive compression ratios and decompression performance, broad availability on hardware and software across operating systems, and widespread adoption in OS, cloud, and web scenarios." Basically, its inclusion alongside GDeflate offers developers another option when figuring out what will suit their workload best.

Even greater improvements to this compression tech will be ushered in down the line by "GPU partners [working] towards future hardware specific optimizations for Zstd." Those GPU partners chime in with some much-needed context, too.

"Aligning the industry on an open compression standard builds a foundation for future game titles to deliver immersive experiences with even larger worlds than realistically possible today," Daniel Staheli, CVP of Software Development at AMD, said, "We plan to make optimizations for AMD GPUs available in a public driver during the second half of 2026 and look forward to seeing how developers use these investments to enhance the player experience.”

Rival GPU manufacturer and now massive AI company Nvidia echoed a similar sentiment, with distinguished engineer Patrick Neill saying, "NVIDIA is excited to bring Zstd support to game developers, with decompression optimizations tailored for NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs arriving in the second half of this year."

Intel is also on board, hoping to "tune Zstandard decompression through DirectStorage across our GPU architectures". Qualcomm also said it will bring Zstd-tuned driver updates "that reflect our investments in Zstd decompression on our platforms" by the end of the year.

To aid in 'aligning the industry on an open compression standard,' Microsoft has also made its Zstd GPU decompression compute shader open-source. It's still in active development, but currently interested devs can get their hands on a version of the shader that is "optimized for content chunked to 256KB or smaller, consistent with modern game packaging patterns for streaming workloads."

While a lot of the language here implies a PC focus, Microsoft is definitely still interested in console hardware. Just for a start, the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Asha Sharma, said 'hello' by promising to "recommit to our core Xbox fans and players." Then there was the announcement of next-gen console Project Helix, a hybrid box that will apparently play both PC and Xbox games—though another GDC talk revealed this week that it's still years away.

Even so, it's clear Microsoft still wants to keep its thumb firmly stuck in the gaming pie. CEO Satya Nadella recently said the company will "always" invest in gaming, and that Xbox "at its best lifts the entire company." Smart compression improvements like DirectStorage 1.4 may help Microsoft pave its way to a brighter gaming future…bit by bit.

I’ve had quite the journey with the Obsbot Tiny 3, a real emotional rollercoaster. First was the elation I felt unboxing it (how did they manage to make a webcam so cute?). Then, came the unease after learning the wild price difference between the Obsbot Tiny 3 ($349) and its more budget-friendly sibling, the Tiny 3 Lite ($199). Once I spent some time testing the webcam, though, it sort of started to win me over again. Like I said: an emotional rollercoaster.

At less than two inches tall and weighing a little over 2 ounces, the Tiny 3 is the smallest webcam in Obsbot’s Tiny line, and very likely one of the smallest webcams you’ll ever use. Portability really seems to be at the heart of this cam’s design. Not only is it light enough to perch comfortably on even the slimmest of laptops, it comes with a palm-sized, hard-shell carry case that neatly fits the webcam, its removable magnetic mount, a USB-C to USB-C cable, and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. If you’re a hybrid worker or fancy yourself something of a ‘digital nomad’ type, the Tiny 3 is an attractive proposition.

Of course, there’s no value in having a webcam that looks good if its video doesn’t. And thankfully, the Tiny 3 really knocks it out of the park. It houses a 50 MP 1/1.28-inch CMOS sensor (roughly comparable to that of the iPhone 15 Pro) and delivers impressively detailed footage in 4K at 30 fps, and 1080p at 120 fps. Freckles, pores, and peach fuzz are captured with real fidelity (whether you like it or not), and the Tiny 3’s attentive autofocus constantly makes sure you don’t get lost in the scene.

Thanks to its expansive ISO range, its image is strikingly clean and virtually devoid of noticeable noise in both low light and hard light environments. This is probably the biggest advantage it has over its Lite counterpart, which doesn’t quite have that same flexibility.

I had something of a Tiny family union and put the Tiny 3, the Tiny 3 Lite, and the Tiny 2 Lite to the test at the exact same time. The previous generation of cam is noticeably outclassed, but the differences between the flagship 3 and its Lite version are far subtler. What really tips the scales in the Tiny 3’s favor is how it performs in lower light, but that being worth almost $150 more is a hard sell. For a more detailed rundown of how the Lite sizes up, check out the full Tiny 3 Lite review.

Picture quality aside, Tiny 3’s real party trick is supposed to be its AI Tracking 2.0, which adjusts the camera’s gimbal and digital zoom to follow people or objects. Sure enough, when I set it to track me, the Tiny 3 consistently adjusts the framing in line with my movement. It’s even fairly reliable in less-than-stellar lighting conditions. Objects like coffee cups and pens passed the test too. The only hiccup in the whole process comes when your tracking speed is set too low, as the cam can’t quite keep up.

In the Obsbot Center software, you can fine-tune speed and framing, and enable some specialty modes like Desk Mode (which directs the cam downwards) and Whiteboard Mode. Whiteboard Mode locks to writing surfaces, which worked well in my testing but with the prevalence of screen sharing and digital whiteboards like Miro, it’s hard to imagine too many practical applications for this mode in 2026.

To save you messing about in Obsbot Center too often, there are a number of remote ways to control your Tiny 3. For example, you can raise your hand to have the webcam track and untrack you, or use an L-shape gesture to zoom in and out. In my experience, the Tiny 3’s gesture controls are handy to use, but not quite perfect. Notably, the webcam struggled on occasion to identify my hands when gesturing in front of white walls (though I’ll admit this could be partially my fault for not getting enough sun).

You want to go fully hands-free, the Tiny 3 also sports voice controls via commands like “Sleep, Tiny” and “Zoom in closer”. I’m Irish, but my accent is pretty faint. So, I’m equal parts confused and peeved at just how inconsistent the Tiny 3 is at responding to my requests. Across multiple sessions and even after a total factory reset/update, it’s like I’m speaking a different language half the time. Irish, perhaps?

I think my best results are using voice controls with the exaggerated annunciation of an 1980s American games show host. But even when I put on this really annoying affectation, the webcam is like a boisterous puppy: picking up on commands most of the time but occasionally just doing its own thing.

It’s not like its omnidirectional mics can’t pick me up, they really are very solid. While webcams aren’t known for having tremendous integrated audio, the Tiny 3 is a pretty pleasant surprise. It isn’t pro production level (you’ll probably want an external mic for that anyway) but it’s definitely head and shoulders above what you’d expect. It has five audio modes, tuned to varying recording environments.

However, while recording or streaming at 1080p or higher, the only audio mode available is Smart Omni mode (recommended for multi-person meetings). Even in modes which are supposed to have dedicated AI noise reduction, I found that the mic picked up a little more background sound than I’d like. This is almost sweet when you’re interrupted by the tweeting of birds in the garden, but maybe not so pleasant if the noise outside your window is traffic.

Listen to the microphone test below:

Alongside its suite of actually useful features, the Obsbot Tiny 3 sports some pretty rogue ones too. For example, there are a whole menu of settings in the Beauty tab meant to ‘enhance’ your face and body. Out of journalistic duty, I committed to shifting sliders and choosing digital makeup until I found myself transformed into the pallid, uncanny Douyin babe of my dreams and/or nightmares.

While the Tiny 3’s ‘Beauty’ edits are a decent bit more convincing than the average TikTok filter, the whole experience gets very The Substance. So, these aren’t tools I’d recommend earnestly making use of—both for your own well-being and the well-being of those who have to look at you.

The Obsbot Tiny 3 is seriously overkill for most folks shopping for a webcam.

I think it’s worth thinking about which of its selling points justifies the price tag for you and your needs. If you’re looking to pick up a webcam solely for work and social calls, I’d pass on the Tiny 3. 4K webcams are a market that have grown considerably in the last few years but still, most video conferencing platforms like Google Meet and Zoom don’t support 4K, and will downscale your video output to conserve bandwidth. Unless you’re a Nitro subscriber, you’re limited to 1080p on Discord too. Plus, any swanky AI tracking is more likely to be an unwelcome distraction than a game-changing asset to your work meetings.

That said, if you’re a content creator or streamer, you might find this pocket-sized cam to be a real powerful player in your low-footprint setup. Be ready to pay a pretty penny for it though, Oh, and maybe don’t get your hopes up on those voice controls.

The Tiny 3 straddles the boundary between the worlds of corporate video conferencing and streaming/content creation. Yet I’m not convinced it fully serves either.How useful are swish AI webcam tricks beyond just distracting your manager at your next meeting? Meanwhile, if you’re dropping $300+ for a webcam with the intent of using it for content creation, it starts to make sense to instead consider a mid to entry-level action cam, or even save up for a DSLR. Or—and hear me out—you could opt for the Tiny 3 Lite instead.

Don’t get me wrong: a $199 webcam still isn’t a low cost pick, but it feels like the Tiny 3 Lite delivers the most essential elements of the original Tiny 3 at a fraction of the cost.

Side by side, the Tiny 3 Lite looks very similar to its pricier sibling, though you’ll notice it’s just a tad chunkier and doesn’t have a removable mount. Though, once mounted, the original Tiny 3 is actually ever so slightly taller and heavier than the Lite. It’s not a difference in size worth making a fuss about, but it is a difference nonetheless.

You also don’t get a carry case with the Lite like you do with the original. But at around 2.28-inches tall and 2.57 oz/73 grams, you shouldn’t have too much difficulty packing the Tiny 3 Lite if you plan to travel with it. It’s just that foregoing the premium Tiny 3 means you have to source your own case.

The Tiny 3 Lite is capable of filming or streaming 4K (30 fps) and 1080p (120 fps), and its 1/2-inch CMOS sensor doesn’t seem massively dissimilar to the 1/1.28-inch sensor of the Tiny 3, but there is a discernible difference in how each webcam processes light.

The picture on the Tiny 3 Lite still looks great, and is a definite upgrade from the previous generation of Tiny webcams, but it appears softer than that of the Tiny 3, and fine details are liable to be ever so slightly smudged. Fair warning, too: things start to fall off the deep end when filming in low-light. Because of Lite’s smaller sensor, you are going to be plagued by a good bit more noise in darker environments than you would be with the Tiny 3.

Of course, if your usual streaming/recording/conferencing set-up is dark and moody, this could be a major sticking point. However, if you avoid using screens in the dark (your eyesight will thank you), you could find the Tiny 3 Lite that perfectly trims the fat of the Tiny 3 without sacrificing too much of the core performance.

It’s entirely a personal preference, but I found the unprocessed picture of the Tiny 3 Lite to generally be more pleasing to the eye than the Tiny 3. The latter leans quite cold and crisp, and tends to lose the energy of a space (as woo-woo as that might sound).

The audio from the Tiny 3’s omnidirectional mics is miles away from the hollow, tinny sound you might expect from a webcam’s integrated microphone. However, I’d still recommend investing in an external microphone if you want something that sounds especially professional.

Listen to the microphone test below:

Unfortunately, its five audio modes don’t differ too massively from each other, and so you’re not offered too many truly unique ways to deal with background noise or multiple audio sources. Despite that, the Tiny 3 Lite should have you fully covered for standard video calls.

The Tiny 3 Lite’s gimbal and AI Tracking 2.0 remain headline features. From tracking people to objects, the Lite was just as reliable and snappy as the flagship model. It features almost all the same tracking options too, including close-up, upper body, lower body, and headless (less ominous than it sounds, I promise).

It’s worth noting that if you choose the Lite over the OG Tiny 3, you will have to go without Desk and Whiteboard mode, but in my testing I found that you could kind of approximate the framing of both of these with just a little extra effort. You can even set these positions as presets and activate them with the webcam’s voice controls.

Well… you can in theory.

I’m not sure why, but the voice controls for every Obsbot Tiny model I’ve tried are really not my friend. Like with the Tiny 3, the Tiny 3 Lite proved to be really temperamental when responding to my commands. For the most part, I just adjusted the Obsbot via the app or with gesture controls, because the frustration of being stonewalled by a dinky webcam became a little too much to bear. If you were envisioning voice controls being a regular part of your futuristic workflow, it’s best to temper your expectations.

If you’re a hobbyist streamer or someone who very frequently video conferences for work, you’ll likely be more than satisfied with what the Tiny 3 Lite has to offer. There’s somewhat of a jump down in performance from the Tiny 3, but I can’t say that’d keep me up at night if I opted for the Lite—especially with an extra $150 in my pocket.

When I saw that Elgato's Wave Link audio mixing software now supports non-Elgato microphones, I got quite excited. I don't have an Elgato microphone, but I do care about my audio quality on my PC for a range of uses. So let's see whether it's worth an install.

The Wave Link is a mixer for microphones and output devices that can add effects and adjust sound on the fly from any source. Where you'd previously need a Wave microphone or XLR unit, it now accepts any input that your Windows or Mac device recognises.

The updated Wave Link app has up to five mix tabs and allows up to eight different sources. Effectively, this means if I want to stream, I can customise the mix of multiple outputs to be different to how they might sound when I'm offline or playing games.

This could be making a game lower volume on stream or making Discord sounds higher to more effectively hear chat. It's intuitive, easy-to-understand, and quite effective. 'Chrome' appears as 'Google Chat Download' for me, which is mildly confusing, but that's the only real hiccup I had setting everything up.

This in itself is a decent replacement for a full-on mixer, but it actually gets more interesting with the option to add effects. You can individually add compressors, de-essers, EQ, and more to outputs. Ones you've acquired some yourself, or downloaded through the Elgato marketplace. Not everything here is free, unfortunately, but there are some solid free effects that are easy to set up.

If you think the fluctuation in the dynamics between Spotify or Chrome is too jarring, throw a compressor and limiter on there to fix it yourself. This is neat, and swapping between different presets merely requires clicking on whichever mix you want to use.

There is a downside here, though. Effects are added at the beginning of a mixer stack, which means you can't set a de-esser on Chrome for just your personal mix and leave sound untreated in your stream mix. You can't even get around this limitation by adding two versions of Chrome to your stack. You can apply and unapply effects with the quickness of a button, though, so it's not a huge problem in my book

The eight total inputs are a small limitation, and you can add multiple outputs to the same track, but not multiple inputs. This means that a mixer stack can affect a wide variety of sounds, but those in the same section have to be treated the same way.

It's not just output that you can adjust with the Wave Link. You can add effects to microphone input, which you can then add to your output stack. With my Shure MV6, I can adjust some settings in Shure's Motiv app, or add them after the fact in Audacity, or skip both and do it all straight from the Wave Link.

As someone who spends a lot of time adjusting sound after recording when I make videos, I could see this majorly cutting down on recording time.

Again, though, it is held back somewhat by the fact that you can't add different effects for different mixes. I'd personally love the ability to up the bass in a streaming setup, and then flatten it for when I'm gaming with my pals. I don't necessarily want to hit the Discord group with a radio voice at 10 PM on a Friday.

What struck me in my time with Wave Link is that it being free, intuitive, and coming with pretty powerful stock effects makes it feel different to much of what is currently out there. I had a slight 'why aren't more people doing this?' moment as I used it. Rode's Unify is a solid mixer, with very limited output control that works with Rode's own devices.

Logitech's Mixline allows some mixing with non-Logitech devices, but it's not as intuitive and doesn't come with easy effects integration. The VB-Audio VoiceMeeter mixer is a tad dated in appearance, though still pretty powerful (and it will cost you after 30 days). The Wave Link works almost unencumbered with any device, is easy to use, and I think it would be a boon to any setup, regardless of whether you own a Corsair or Elgato device.

There's room for the app to grow in the future, too. There's one free voice changer effect in the Elgato marketplace, which could serve as a decent replacement for the likes of VoiceMod, but it will only get better as the marketplace does.

It could still benefit from some fine-tuning and a greater number of effects in the Elgato marketplace, but I'm sold on the app and could find myself using it from here on out. The fact that I can hook it up to my Stream Deck for quick mix swapping is just an extra cherry on top.

I'm old enough to remember when plug-and-play USB microphones were rubbish. Your alternative, however, was the murky, audio nerd-inhabited world of XLR, which required the use of a separate interface to connect a microphone to your PC.

XLR is still the gold standard for professional recording gear, but the world of studio-style recording can be fraught with fiddly details. HyperX has decided that its latest microphone, the HyperX FlipCast, might as well have both connections at once. On the rear of the mic is both a USB Type-C and an XLR port, so it's suitable for both plug-and-play usage and most recording interfaces. Take your pick.

Not only that, but the XLR connection doesn't require 48 V phantom power, and can work in tandem with the USB version. That means any interface with an XLR socket should work if you so desire, or you can simply plug it in the back of your rig, or both—which makes for a pretty excellent start in the compatibility stakes.

The microphone itself is a large, dynamic unit, with a podcast-style form factor. It's got a sizeable foam filter, and comes attached to a substantial curved stand, suitable for attaching to a boom arm (both ⅜-inch & ⅝-inch threads are supported). What you don't get, however, is an included desktop stand—which is unfortunately pretty standard for this sort of microphone.

In fact, you'll also miss out on an included desktop stand if you opt for our best microphone pick for podcasting, the Shure MV7+. It's pretty much my favourite microphone right now, because it captures professional-grade audio over both XLR and USB interfaces, and comes with some very easy-to-use software.

It's a fair bit more expensive than the FlipCast at the time of writing, though, with the HyperX unit coming in at $261 to the Shure's $300. Still, the HyperX better be impressive if it wants to take the Shure's spot, even if it does manage to beat it on MSRP.

It's quite a good-looking mic in person, despite the product photos on the HyperX website making the large, shiny protrusion on the top look a little cheap.

Here you get a large, capacitive mute button and a sizable LED display that acts as a gain indicator. Towards the rear is a volume control dial, while on the back it's got those XLR and USB Type-C connections, alongside a 3.5 mm jack for on-mic monitoring. The FlipCast also has a streamer-friendly RGB ring, which spins through its colour wheel at quite an astonishing rate.

Yes, it can be adjusted. Anyway, an interesting extra feature is the addition of two small buttons on the rear of the mic, which control a built-in high-pass filter and presence boost function—which gives you an idea of the sound profile HyperX might be aiming for.

Clear and precise is definitely the order of the day. High-pass filters reduce low-frequency noises (which sounds a bit counterintuitive, I know), while the presence switch boosts the upper-midrange and treble audio frequencies. What you should end up with, then, with both enabled, is a decent whack of clarity, sacrificing a little richness for a more focused sound.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings on, filters on

And lo, it comes to pass. The FlipCast captures a clear, if slightly thin, vocal tone with the filters enabled, although those switches are subtle enough that I can see many first-time users setting up the mic without realising they exist.

It's not a particularly wide-ranging sound at these settings, which will be a boon for focused voice chat cutting through the sound of gunfire, but not so great for vocal recording. Still, turn off the switches (or have a play with the EQ in Hyper X's Ngenuity software), and the FlipCast duly richens up—although it never quite reaches the crispy-yet-deep, radio-like quality of the Shure.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings on, filters off

Speaking of the software EQ, I'd really like to see HyperX include some presets by default. I know my way around an equaliser, but most gamers would likely enjoy some basic pre-engineered settings to help them find the vocal sound they're after. Still, out of the box, the FlipCast appears to have been tuned well, and its default sound profile is actually pretty good.

The basic nature of the rest of the software, though, is disappointing to see. Noise cancelling, compression, and a limiter setting have been reduced to tickboxes, which means you can only turn them on and off—and when it comes to the noise cancelling, that's a real shame.

You'll want to turn it on, because the FlipCast is a rather sensitive beast. I'm used to setting up a microphone of this type for close vocal capture, which means keeping it a few inches away from my lips. However, the HyperX mic is sensitive enough to capture at a much further distance, which might seem like a good thing at first glance.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings off, filters off

But with the noise cancelling off and the gain set to a reasonable 60%, it likes to pick up a lot of background noise, along with a little bit of hiss. Enable the noise cancelling, and most of the unwanted noise duly disappears—but it's quite particular about which noises it picks up and which it chooses to remove, leading to the odd audio quirk.

The softly-jingling zipper on my hoodie, for example (I didn't even realise it jingled until I started using this mic), gives it the odd issue. It'll duck the noise out very quickly, then cut back in in a way that suggests a rough audio edit.

Essentially, it's a bit of a blunt instrument, and you can hear it working a little too often for my liking. A simple slider adjustment would likely allow you to tune this sort of behaviour out, but no, on and off are your only options.

Turn on all the goodies, however, and the audio capture becomes a little forced. If I was using this microphone on the regular, I'd keep the noise cancelling and limiter turned on and the compressor left off, along with the filters. At these settings, you get a good balance of dynamic range, richness, and clarity.

HyperX FlipCast - noise cancelling on, limiter on, compression off, filters off

Very nice. This mic's tendency towards sensitivity also extends to the XLR connection, where you'll likely want to enable some VST plugins of your own to reign in its high-output ways. It's a good-sounding microphone nonetheless—just with a lot of lead in its pencil.

I'm not opposed to that in principle, but it's not the easiest thing to work with. And if you choose to go USB only with the HyperX software in tow, your sonic options are somewhat limited, even if what you end up with is a great tone overall.

So, it's not a bad showing for the HyperX FlipCast. But the combination of these caveats and its significant price tag is enough to give me pause. It's far cheaper in the UK right now (£195 at the time of writing), and if that price was translated into dollars, I'd be more inclined towards a heartier recommendation.

For $261, though, I'd rather spend a little extra and buy the Shure MV7+ instead. It's got much more impressive software, which allows for simplified, easy adjustments of its various filters and noise-cancelling options to find the right sound for you. It's also got a capsule that sounds genuinely studio-ready, and while the HyperX puts up a good fight in the audio stakes, it's still outclassed by the Shure offering.

And should you wish to save some cash, it's well worth considering some of the cheaper options in our best gaming microphone guide. They might not have the same feature set or audio-capturing capabilities as the FlipCast, but you can still save a boatload of money by picking up something very good (with better software) for less.

It's a great microphone, but for this sort of moolah, I want all of my whims accounted for. And while the FlipCast makes an admirable attempt, it's not quite the be-all and end-all mic it may appear to be at first glance. Lovely sound, though. I have to give it that.

If you aren't the type to physically lean as you play driving games but want that immersion factor, turns out you can just zap your brain to "make you fall in that direction."

Streamer, content creator, and owner of a Master's degree in psychology, PerriKaryal, recently took to TikTok to show off her latest device. It can "shift your balance by passing a current through your head in different directions controlled by a joystick."

Using a technique called galvanic vestibular stimulation (or GVS), it applies electrical currents to a nerve in the ear that helps maintain balance. When that nerve is manipulated, it can make you lose balance, and PerriKaryal has managed to map the feeling of being pushed to one side by moving a joystick in the same direction.

Before taking it to games, she tested it outside and ran in a straight line, only to have her camera person physically control her with a game controller. As her running outside was presumably filmed for a TikTok, we don't quite know much embellishment there is, but it is technically possible, and a good visual way of demonstrating what the tech is.

As she says in the TikTok's description, "Naturally, my first thought was man, I wanna play Trackmania with this." Trackmania, being a more arcade-style racing game, is an ideal choice for hurtling anyone from side to side. The in-game testing was streamed on Twitch (from 02:30:00 onwards), where PerriKaryal showed off some of the code, plus the placement of the device on the back of her ears.

Actually using the device for a game quickly goes awry, though. "Am I supposed to be seeing flashing lights?"

After fighting through a headache, flashing lights, and 'buzzy' vision, PerriKaryal says, "Don't do this. Don't build this. Don't make this. I do not approve of anyone making this themselves. I don't condone that behaviour. It's incredibly dangerous, and I'm not liable."

This is not our first time seeing PerriKaryal. Just last year, she took on Elden Ring: Nightreign with just her brain. Everyone uses their brain to play a game, of course, but PerriKaryal's method is a bit more literal. She used brain-computer interface software to connect to a device that measures brain activity and map it onto a virtual game pad. This is to say, for the sake of science (and content), she's no stranger to playing games with little electronic devices hooked up to her brain.

As she says in the description of her latest TikTok video, "I do not have enough self-preservation. Send help."

I sometimes forget about the existence of Nvidia's Shield devices, in all their various iterations. Shield TV, however, has been with us now for over a decade in some form or another—and according to Nvidia, the Android-powered set-top box is far from done yet.

In an interview with Ars Technica, Nvidia's senior VP of hardware engineering, Andrew Bell, talks in reverence about the Shield devices and what they mean to the company. Like all good ideas, it seems, Bell says the Shield project came from an enthusiastic group of engineers:

"Pretty much everybody who worked at Nvidia in the early days really wanted to make a game console," Bell opines.

"To build a game console was pretty complicated because, of course, you have to have a GPU, which we know how to make... but in addition to that, you need a CPU, an OS, games, and you need a UI."

Through a series of acquisitions and partnerships, (including the purchase of PortalPlayer in 2007, which led to the Tegra Arm chips at their hearts), Nvidia gradually gathered the elements that would make up its early Shield iterations.

However, while the early Shield devices were focussed around gaming on the move, the project eventually morphed into a streaming-first experience for home TV usage. The key switch came from Google's development of Android TV, which brought a clean, efficient UI and software platform into the equation.

"Selfishly, a little bit, we built Shield for ourselves," says Bell. "We actually wanted a really good TV streamer that was high-quality and high-performance, and not necessarily in the Apple ecosystem. We built some prototypes, and we got so excited. [CEO Jensen Huang] was like, 'Why don't we bring it out and sell it to people?'"

To this day, the Shield TV is often mentioned as one of the most high-quality, reliable methods of streaming media to a home theatre setup, and that seems to be a key crux of its current design:

“Eventually, we kind of said, ‘Maybe the soul is that it’s a streamer for gamers. We understand gamers from GeForce, and we understand they care about quality and performance," says Bell.

"A lot of these third-party devices like tablets, they’re going cheap. Set-top boxes, they’re going cheap. But we were the only company that was like, 'Let’s go after people who really want a premium experience.'"

Perhaps the biggest testament to the Shield TV's endurance is the level of support it's been afforded by Nvidia since its inception, at least according to Bell:

"Early on when we were building Shield TV, we decided we were going to make it for a long time. Jensen and I had a discussion, and it was, ‘How long do we want to support this thing?’ And Jensen said, ‘For as long as we shall live.'"

At that point, a solemn reverence began to hang over the room, as a choir chanted in the... okay, I'm making this bit up. Still, it's refreshing to hear that Nvidia has put support and continual updates at the heart of the Shield experience from day one, and as a result the device is still held in high esteem—even if there's been the odd wobble along the way.

And while it's been over six years since the last hardware refresh of Nvidia's set-top (it really should be set-under, shouldn't it?) box, it seems that development of a new version is far from off the table:

"We’re always playing in the labs, trying to discover new things," says Bell. "We’ve played with new concepts for Shield and we’ll continue to play, and if we find something we’re super-excited about, we’ll probably make a go of it."

Watch this space, perhaps?

Every year, the CES event has tech vendors around the world showcasing their latest and greatest innovations and devices. Sometimes, though, it's hard for your carefully crafted hardware to stand out in the ocean of gadgets, but Corsair reckons it's done just that with its new Galleon 100 SD keyboard, with its built-in Stream Deck.

Looking somewhat like a K70 Core that's been hacked open to remove the numpad, the Galleon 100 SD just looks like any other in-your-face gaming keyboard, replete with RGB lighting and whizz-bang features galore. Naturally, it has an 8000 Hz polling rate and FlashTap SOCD functionality, because every other top-end gaming keyboard does.

However, the Galleon eschews the trend of Hall effect or TMR switches and instead uses Corsair's MLX Pulse Linear mechanical clickers. These come pre-lubricated, and they're hot-swappable, so theoretically you could install something even faster (assuming Corsair isn't using any kind of proprietary wiring).

But none of this is really what the Galleon 100 SD is all about. The unique selling point here is the integrated Stream Deck. Topped with two rotary encoders, followed by a small LCD screen, the built-in deck offers 12 customisable keys for macros, game actions, and workflow sequences.

Having already spent decades of my life committing shortcuts and weird hand gestures for key combos to my long-term memory, I never really got on with my own Elgato Stream Deck. It saw brief use for a few weeks, then spent several months collecting dust on my desk, before being relegated to a drawer.

I don't say this to put you off the idea of buying a Corsair Galleon 100 SD, more just as a reminder that, unless you really need a deck, all you'll be paying for is a bunch of pretty-looking buttons that you won't use very much. And pay you will, because the Galleon 100 SD will set you back a cool $350 at Corsair's store.

For that amount of money, you could buy a wired Asus ROG Strix Scope II X keyboard ($100 at Amazon), an Elgato Stream Deck XL ($200 at Amazon), and still have fifty bucks left over for a barrel of tea and biscuits. I do like the look of the Corsair Galleon 100 SD, and I especially like the twin rotary encoders, but the price just feels all kinds of wrong.

There are some corners that cannot be unturned, some scientific experiments that cannot be un-experimented, some contraptions that cannot be unseen. There are those too, of course, that are glorious. And then there are those, like this one from Speedrunner and X, TikTok, and Twitch user veegeea, that sit in the curious valley between the two.

I'm not sure whether veegeea has gone where no person should, or exactly where a person should. Their project, 'Project IRL', is, as they put it, one that allows them "to put on a full fledged game stream experience anywhere I’d like utilizing the capabilities of the ROG Ally and Ally X with one doing AAA Gaming and the other grabbing the recording and putting together the stream."

In other words, it looks like a project to allow them to become an IRL streamer, whilst also gaming on the move. Usually IRL streamers have to manage a small device or two with a camera, and no gameplay. But this setup allows a game streamer to keep game streaming, while also IRL streaming. And have their hands free, too, when they need, thanks to the harness setup.

They've been at it for a while now. Back in July 2023 they posted a TikTok of themselves wearing a harness with a stand attached that holds an ROG Ally in front of their face. Though back then it looks like they were calling it 'Project Go Live.'

If you're wondering what it looks like now, well, it's about as bonkers as you might expect. In particular, I like the video from June this year showing him streaming to a giant vertically oriented screen on his back, and presumably also to a streaming platform such as Twitch, too.

Late last year, though, he was using an even more convoluted setup featuring an Elgato Prompter. It's a smart way to stream, I suppose, because you can look directly into the camera and speak to your audience while you're gaming. Though I don't know whether I'd find it a little disconcerting to see a streaming constantly looking into the camera in the facecam.

Whatever the case, that prompter seems to have been ditched for the outing to whatever convention they were at earlier this year. To make room for the much more reasonable back-mounted screen, of course. It's all bonkers, as I said—but exactly the right kind of bonkers. Keep it up, veegeea.

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I was going to say that 2019's Death Stranding is a singular experience, but I guess these days that's no longer true. The game's sequel was released on PS5 earlier this year, with the inevitable PC version yet to be given a release date, while two film adaptations—one live action, one animated—are in the works. Now Hideo Kojima has announced yet another Death Stranding tie-in is being developed for Disney+, and this time it's an anime.

Death Stranding Isolations is the working title for the anime, which is due on Disney+ in 2027. Side note: every time the name is mentioned the press release puts "(Working Title)" after it, so I hope it's clear this is a working title. Hideo Kojima will act as executive producer on the series while Takayuki Sano, who has a list of anime credits longer than Kojima's Hollywood phonebook, is on directorial duties. The lovely art that accompanied the announcement is by Ilya Kuvshinov (Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045).

The anime tells a distinct story within the universe, following a young man and woman on adventure and told through a "traditional, hand-drawn 2D animation style" by "some of Japan’s top animation talent at E&H production".

There's also a story synopsis with an incredible opening:

"Lonesome souls of the dead manifest in the physical world, reaching in search of the living. However, the connection they create triggers a massive explosion that eradicates anything of this world—a phenomenon referred to as the Death Stranding. These events wipe out nations as well as civilization itself. People who remain are now isolated, withdrawn, and without connections. As humanity stands at the brink a legendary porter set out to transport both cargo and wishes of its senders, reconnecting people in the hope that they might still be saved."

The synopsis goes on to make clear that this is happening somewhere else in North America while Sam Porter Bridges is trudging around, and offers up some meaningless verbiage about a story told with "a bold and yet subtle touch". After alluding to some of the characters involved the teaser ends: "And now, comes another explosion…"

I do find Hideo Kojima's relentless franchise-ing quite amusing (earlier this week I wrote about another of his schemes: a freaking Death Stranding exoskeleton), but you have to wonder just how much appetite there is for three separate adaptations of a game that features characters called Die Hardman. I think Death Stranding is an absolutely brilliant game, but it's also one that works because of the vibes rather than the (often ludicrous) story beats and overarching narrative. Perhaps both movies and the anime will turn out to be excellent. But I won't be Holding My Breathman.

Returning home one evening after a night of revelry, I discovered a mysterious Amazon box on my doorstep I had no memory of ordering. No, it wasn't the whiskey playing tricks on me, it was instead another gift from my mischievous editor-in-chief. This time he's sent me a $23 Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone to review. Goody.

Actually, I shouldn't be so quick to judge. Pulling the mic from its default cardboard packaging reveals a surprisingly weighty little chassis, and that's a promising start.

I've had the privilege of working with some roadworthy audio equipment over the years, and the little Amazon Basics mic has the same sort of heft I'd usually associate with something gig-proof, like a Shure SM58 or SM57. It's just in miniature, so you can easily integrate it into your desk setup.

The Basics mic also comes with an adorable little stand, which, for reasons I can't quite fathom, tilts from the bottom of the pole, not the top. I have no idea why the little mic loves a Dutch angle so, but it makes me giggle slightly every time I see it cocked to one side. A slightly bizarre design choice, perhaps, but I suppose a tilt is a tilt—and it's completely stable at a full drunken lean, regardless.

You also get a USB Type-A to Type-C cable, a brief quickstart leaflet and, err, nothing else. This is an Amazon Basics product after all, and realistically, this is about right for even some fairly high end desktop mics. A stand, a microphone to put on the stand, a cable to connect said microphone to your PC. All as it should be.

The mic itself actually has a couple of hidden features worth shouting about, though. Firstly, it's got an internal shockmount, which should help with table bumps and unwanted reverberation. And secondly, it has a tap to mute function, activated by… well, pressing a mute button on the front. I'm not sure that counts as a "tap", but that's how Amazon describes it, at least.

That's actually a feature our current favourite budget gaming mic, the Razer Seiren Mini, lacks. Score one for the little Amazon cheapo-beepo unit then. Good stuff. The Basics unit records at up to a 48 kHz 16 bit sample rate, and has a frequency response of 50 Hz - 20,000 Hz. These are completely acceptable specs for any mic, and combine to create an audio quality that I'd say is surprisingly good.

Again, I'd like to remind you this is a $23 mic. Sure, it doesn't provide the shiny, golden clarity and richness you'd associate with some of the best gaming microphones. But I'm going to call it here: it sounds downright good. Not just for the cash, but in general. I've tested many, many budget microphones over the years, and this one stands tall over anything I can think of for under $50.

Which again, is all it really needs to do. What dear Dave has sent me here is a budget bit of audio gear that genuinely works, with good build quality, perfectly decent sound, and no software fuss.

Really, my only complaint here is that you don't get any noise cancelling, which means this little condenser capsule is going to pick up noise from the room around you, and any of its inhabitants. Still, good luck finding a mic that provides comprehensive software features for anywhere near this price point, so I really can't grouse too loudly given the minimal spend.

And I suppose you don't get any RGB gamer flair, if that's your jam. But really, this microphone sets out to do one task, which is to record your voice well from a desktop position for a very reasonable outlay, and it accomplishes that task with aplomb.

All of which has me wiping my brow in relief. After the horrors of the Bengoo G9000, it feels like ultra-budget audio gear needed something of a win, and the Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone has achieved just that. It's weeny, it's well-built, it sounds good, and it costs you around half the price of a modern AAA game. That'll do nicely!

Matthew 'Mizkif' Rinaudo, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, has filed a lawsuit against Emily 'Emiru' Schunk and Zack 'Asmongold' Hoyt alongside three media companies for defamation and breach of contract.

As reported by KXAN, the suit follows allegations made against Mizkif by Emiru in which she accused him of "psychological and domestic abuse, stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and threats of blackmail" during an October 24 livestream.

During the stream, Emiru alleges that Mizkif had "been indirectly threatening me through my friends and people that I work with," claiming that "his plan was to claim that I kill animals and that I killed my own rabbits."

She told her stream: "I think everyone who paid attention knew that he was very controlling over what I wore, to a degree who I was friends with, and even when I would stream." Allegations included having plastic bottles thrown at her, a phone thrown at her eye, and aggressive behaviour.

She also afforded sparse details of the "extremely private relationship" the two engaged in between 2022 and 2025, along with allegations of an incident that took place where Mizkif "tried to comfort me by hugging me while I was sitting on the couch, and holding me really close to him," before "he started kissing me in my face. And I let him do it, I was still sobbing a lot. And then, suddenly, he tried to climb on top of me and aggressively shoved his hand down my pants and I screamed. And when I screamed, he jumped off me like a cat. And instead of apologising and checking if I was okay he said 'I feel weird now. I feel like I did something wrong. I have to go,' and he immediately left my house while I was still crying.

Shortly after, Mizkif responded with a stream of his own where he admitted: "I told her to dress older, to stop wearing pajamas, and to stop talking about stalkers as a whole, stop talking about past relationships—and yes, I didn't want her to travel without me. I also said that I didn't want her to hang out with specific people. This is because I didn't want her to get hurt."

He also claimed: "Emi[ru] was also violent. She would throw clothes or plushies at me and I punched holes in the walls or slammed doors in aggression."

These interactions appear to be the basis of Mizkif's lawsuit, which says Emiru's October 24 stream contained "slanderous accusations" which "were made live before an audience of tens of thousands and have since been viewed millions of times across various platforms." The suit also, among other things, claims that "Schunk would dress and behave in ways that Rinaudo thought made her unsafe in light of the ongoing stalking from some of her followers."

He also has beef with media company One True King, which he helped co-found in 2020 and which Emiru joined as a co-owner in 2023, Mythic Talent Management, and King Gaming Labs. The suit claims that OTK rescinded Mizkif's remaining shares following Emiru's allegations—essentially removing him from the company entirely—with Mythic Talent Management chasing him up for $600,000 in breached contract management fees and King Gaming Labs seeking payment for violation of an agreement and further breaches.

"Mythic, King, and OTK made no serious investigation or inquiry into the basis for or truth of Shunk's allegations before repudiating their agreements with [Mizkif]," the suit alleges. It continues: "Indeed, Mythic, King, and OTK did not even ask Rinaudo for comment or any information in his possession disproving the allegations."

But wait, where does Asmongold come into all this? Well, he's next up on the chopping block in the suit. The suit claims he has "continuously defamed Rinaudo on a near daily basis" since Emiru's allegations, writing that Asmongold has among other things stated Mizkif "should be in jail, claimed he was abusing and manipulating others, hurting other people, and becoming an aggressor."

Mizkif's suit also complains that Asmongold "falsely accused Rinaudo of threatening Schunk's employees at TwitchCon" and claims that Asmongold "has enriched himself personally by advertising revenues and subscription fees garnered from his smear campaign against Rinaudo."

The whole thing is one big mess wrapped up in years of different Twitch dramas and niche sub-community instances, and with defamation cases usually putting a pretty big burden of proof onto the accuser (so Mizkif in this instance) I'd be surprised to see this case going beyond a settlement.

I'd never recommend you buy the Insta360 Link 2C at full price. That's not because it's not worth the $150 asking fee, but that, in the months I've been watching its stock, it has sold for $100 / $110 almost as much as it has $150. Though it's not on sale right now, I've seen it discounted at both Amazon and Best Buy multiple times over the last few months. At this price point, I can't recommend a single 4K webcam on the market over this one, assuming you'll actually get the use out of 4K.

4K is still a bit of a niche even now. Some software doesn't support it, and others (like Discord) require you to have access to a subscription for 4K webcam streaming. Even if your software supports 4K resolution, a small cam on top of a stream on Twitch or YouTube generally won't justify such a high resolution.

When some 4K webcams cost upwards of $200, that extra cash never feels worth it for my use cases. However, down to $100, it makes a lot more sense, and isn't too far from the prices of standard 1080p webcams.

With its look and price point, the Insta360 Link 2C is a natural competitor to the Obsbot Meet 2, which is still the cutest webcam I've ever used, almost a year after first using it. And in the looks department, the Link 2C appears a tad plain. My model is just a small black rectangle with the lens on the left-hand side and a groove on the right. In the centre is a small hole for an LED that shows when it's turned on, reacting to AI gestures (we'll get to that later) or off entirely.

One of the bigger departures from the Meet 2 is a physical privacy filter that can be switched off on the left-hand side. Given that the AI gestures are intended to pick up on what you are doing at any moment (again, we'll get to that later), it's a webcam that's intended to keep an eye on you most of the time. A physical privacy filter that is not software-operated just offers an extra level of assurance.

Where the Link 2C knocks the Meet 2 out of the park is in its stand. The stand itself is a sturdy clip that locks onto the top of the monitor, and then the webcam itself has a magnetic bottom that connects strongly to the stand. Even with a pretty thorough shake of my monitor, it doesn't dislodge or move at all.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have a screw at the bottom of the webcam itself to slot into a stand or tripod, but the stand does, and I've never had any fears of it dropping off that stand. In fact, the stand is so sturdy that you can place the entire thing on a desk and have no fear of the chunky USB wire knocking it off.

As far as image quality is concerned, the half-inch Sony Starlight sensor performs admirably. It handles the admittedly pretty frizzy texture of my curly hair well, catching individual strands in the light. Compared to the Emeet Pixy, the backgrounds are a tad more fuzzy in the Link 2C, but the foreground is better lit in natural lighting, and generally more lifelike, with both cameras in default modes with the latest firmware. It's a matter of preference, but I would pick the 2C.

Though colours can get a tad washed out under the natural lighting of a window, I can still clearly make out text on boxes through the lens of the Link 2C. For a quick meeting, or even streaming, the Link 2C didn't struggle to handle pretty much anything I could throw in front of it. When placing items in front of my face, the autofocus catches on almost instantaneously, but it can take a second or so to register when I hold up text next to my face. This is certainly not bad (how often do you really show off items to a camera holding them next to your face?), but Obsbot and Emeet's recent offerings both outclass the 2C in the autofocus department.

I've had both the Link 2C and Link 2 beside each other in the office for the last few weeks, and they are almost identical. They have the exact same sensor, and the actual webcam itself is the same size. The central difference is that the Link 2 has a gimbal under the webcam that attaches to the stand, where the Link 2C does not. This means the Link 2 can literally follow you around the room and offers a better range of motion on top of your monitor.

For the difference of a gimbal, you will pay an extra $50. It is worth noting, though, that the Link 2 loses the privacy filter in the process, so, in a sense, there's a small trade-off going for the more expensive device. In my experience, webcams with a gimbal are a tad niche, and in this case, my money would be going on the cheaper device. This is especially true when we consider its price point is arguably one of the best parts about the Link 2C.

Listen to the microphone test here:

For a quick meeting, I noticed the Link 2C's built-in microphone is perfectly fine, with the AI-noise cancelling filtering out just enough background noise to be legible. It's not impeccable quality, but impeccable quality isn't what I'd expect from a webcam at this price point.

Speaking of AI features, the Link 2C is one of many recent webcams to offer a whole suite of AI hand gestures. The first is a zoom mode you can activate by holding your hand in an L shape. To actually zoom in or out, you activate the zoom mode, then move your hand up to zoom in and down to zoom out.

Unfortunately, I regularly found myself unable to comfortably zoom out, as zooming in too much cuts your hand out of frame, rendering the software unable to actually process your request to zoom out. You need a little bit of runway in the shot for the camera to pick your hand up, and that was often significantly more space than I anticipated.

The second AI gesture function is a whiteboard mode you can activate by doing a peace sign with your fingers. This focuses on a whiteboard and cuts off corners not in the board for presentations. It's a neat function, but also one that the majority of users will never actually have a use for.

Finally, you can activate an autoframe by holding your hand up and spreading your fingers. This zooms into your face or body and follows you. With the Link 2, this autofocus mode makes a bit more sense as it can follow you as you move.

Whilst seated, I find the autofocus will just zoom quite substantially into my face and doing the autofocus gesture won't reset it back to normal. This means both the zoom mode and autofocus mode require going into the software and manually fixing most of the time, which defeats the purpose of smart AI gesture features.

The software to use the Link 2C is also a bit of a let down. The first time I booted it up, a pop-up appeared on screen (clearly some sort of tutorial), and it simply wouldn't leave. Turning the software on and off again didn't solve the problem, and I had to reinstall the software just to get it to work.

From here, the Link software is mostly used to set a couple of makeup and filter presets (all of which I hated), as well as changing the exposure/temperature. The most useful parts of the Link software are the ability to update the firmware and the function to turn off the AI gestures entirely.

Once through the gauntlet that is operating the software, the Insta360 Link 2C provides a quality experience, backed up by a solid stand, strong build quality, and a decent microphone. Down to $100, I can't think of a single webcam I'd pick instead. Up at full price, though, the competition is much more fierce.

I'm a sucker for a cleverly-designed object. I'm also a sucker for a good budget gaming microphone, and the HyperX SoloCast 2 manages to be both of those things at once. At $60/£50, it's priced in the same sort of territory as some of the cheap and nasty models you'll find in the listings of many major retailers, but pulling it from the box reveals a surprisingly ingenious little gaming mic.

For a start, it's got such a neat integrated desktop stand, it's kind of astonishing to me that I haven't seen something like it before. Essentially, the SoloCast 2 comes as what appears to be one cylindrical unit with two boom arm screw mounts integrated into the bottom (⅜-inch and ⅝-inch, if you were wondering), making it seem like a standard, stand-less, microphone design. Break it apart like a shotgun breech, though, and it opens to reveal a hidden hinged base roughly one fifth of the way up its frame.

It's a robust hinge, too, which means it's weighted enough in its movement to stay at exactly the angle you set it at in a desktop position, with plenty of mass at the bottom to prevent it from accidentally tipping over. Combine that with some nice plastics, a vented grille, and an all-black aesthetic, and the SoloCast 2 really is a good-looking device to place on your desk.

Ports and controls-wise, it's as simple as it gets. There's a capacitive tap-to-mute button taking up the entire circular top of the mic itself, which means even the clumsiest among us (I'm including myself here) won't miss it. Around the back there's a USB Type-C port, and there's a good-sized LED indicator on the front that glows a subtle red with the mic on, and turns off when muted.

It's a relatively stealthy device, then, and I appreciate that. I've got enough RGB-lit doohickeys on my desk to bring a small aircraft in for landing, so testing something that makes an effort to integrate into my setup without drawing unnecessary attention is a welcome relief.

Although I will admit, assigning a red light to the 'on' configuration does seem more than a little counter-intuitive, and a terrible way for your boss to find out what you really think via a mute-based mistake.

Back to the controls. It's also got… oh wait, I'm finished. Yep, everything else is handled by the HyperX Ngenuity software, for which you currently have to install the beta, as it's a newly-released product that isn't recognised by the standard version. From here you can adjust the gain, configure equalizer settings, and add AI-enhanced noise reduction, compression, and a limiter with simple toggle switches—along with high pass, low pass, and presence boosting filters with similar on/off controls.

On the one hand, reducing all these options down to simple toggles for the most part (other than the EQ and the gain, where you can get surprisingly granular) is a win for sheer simplicity of usage. On the other, I'd like some form of slider adjustment for the noise reduction and the compressor at least, as both can be blunt instruments when implemented with a heavy hand.

In that regard, however, the default configurations are actually pretty usable. As you can hear in the clip below, with AI noise reduction, compression, and the limiter enabled, what you end up with is a fairly natural vocal tone, with a good dose of richness without the warbling horrors of noise cancelling-induced distortion. That being said, the SoloCast 2 is relatively quiet from a desktop position unless you boost the gain up (as I've done here), which results in some background hiss leaking in.

You can also just about hear my partner taking a meeting in the background (in a completely different room of the house) with a shut door between us. I'd appreciate being able to bump the noise cancelling up a notch or two to compensate, but alas, it's merely a take-it-or-leave-it option.

Where the SoloCast 2 is allowed to shine, though, is in close up. The built-in pop filter is remarkably effective, meaning you can absolutely mount one in a close-mic'd position for a more studio-like tone and less unwanted noise with the gain backed down. The capsule here has been well-tuned, and everything surrounding it is solid enough to reject most forms of interference without issue.

Other than that, there's… well, not much to talk about really. It seems very well-made, it's a handsome addition to your desk, and the software manages to tread the line between being simple enough for the everyday user, with just enough control left in the form of the toggles and the EQ settings to keep sound tweakers reasonably happy.

If I was being picky (and I am) I'd appreciate it if some EQ presets were installed by default, but the addition of an "add equaliser preset" option in the drop down menu suggests some may be coming once the software makes it out of the beta stage. As it stands, though, it's all very workable, and there's a lack of fuss to the design that endears me to both the software and the mic itself.

However, I think it's got a small but significant problem in the form of its major competition—the $25 Amazon Basics USB microphone. While the SoloCast 2 has a smarter design and adjustable sound settings (unlike the Basics, which has precisely zero software to fiddle with at all), it's difficult to argue with the Amazon mic for less than half the price.

Sticking the clips side by side, I'd say the HyperX unit sounds richer at a distance in a desktop position, likely due to the software compression and a higher-quality capsule. However, the weak noise cancelling lets the SoloCast 2 down, and while the Amazon Basics unit doesn't have any at all, it is significantly cheaper—which really matters at this end of the market.

Still, the SoloCast 2 is a good budget microphone, and if it weren't for the sheer affordability of the Amazon Basics mic, it'd probably be a candidate for our best budget gaming microphone spot by the virtue of its wider feature set as a whole. It sounds good, it's cleverly-designed, and it's well-priced. It's a shame it's been pipped to the post by an astonishingly-cheap pipsqueak, though, ey?

This year has come with a few too many reminders that even verified storefronts like Steam can't fully protect you from malware. Where previous attempts like PirateFi got as far as stealing Steam accounts, a new malware has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of those worst affected by this latest scheme was someone raising money to fight cancer.

As reported by Tom's Hardware, a streamer named RastalandTV went live earlier this week, looking to raise $5,000 to fight stage 4 cancer. After being prompted to download a Steam game named BlockBlasters from his chat, he lost $32,000. It turns out, on August 30, that the Steam game had been injected with malware, and upwards of $100,000 was reported stolen by streamers, creators, and crypto owners.

G Data broke down how exactly this happened and pointed to the injection of a 'game2.bat' file that was added to the game in August. G Data points out this is "a very sobering reminder that malware does real damage to real people and is far more than just some abstract number in some abstract and faraway place."

According to SteamDB, around 6k users own BlockBlasters, and Gamalytic suggests hundreds had the game installed. Being free-to-play (and with an 88% review score before it was taken down this week), it was easy to get access to and being on Steam comes with the implied assurance that the game itself is safe.

A different streamer claims this same malware stole $15k from them, and another points out that users are going into streams to specifically recommend the game.

A forensic report soon came out about the malware, produced by multiple investigators and experts. In it, multiple counterhackers not only linked the malware to specific updates made to the game, but they also noted that contact was made with the hackers via Telegram. The report shows a hacker saying they will send back the money, "which they didn’t and proceeded to nuke everything."

"They will face their punishment in due course," the forensic report warns.

Within a single day, one of the people behind BlockBlasters was found. VX Underground, one person involved in the reporting, shared that a Telegram was linked to the stolen data, and the Telegram ID of one person involved in making the malware was then linked to "several fraud chatrooms", an advertisement "looking for a video game programmer to make a basic 2D game", and another advert "needing help with some malware stuff."

This same Telegram ID was linked back to photos next to expensive cars and a Linktree with a YouTube, Twitter, and other forms of social media. Another streamer showed that some accounts embedded in crypto Twitter were reaching out to prominent cryptobros to get them to try the game.

In this particular case, there is a relatively happy ending. After flagging the problem, RastalandTV was reimbursed for $30,000 from crypto content creator Alex Becker, the hacker was identified, and Rastaland will now be able to afford the treatment he was saving towards.

Earlier this year, a free-to-play web 3 game was taken down for containing "malicious files" after over 7,000 players downloaded it. It managed to steal people's Steam accounts and even spent money from users' Steam wallets, though it didn't appear to get access to more than that.

Then, in July, an early access survival crafting game named Chemia was also spotted hiding malware. The fact that any malware can get onto Steam is certainly worrying, and the fact that so much money can be taken for simply downloading a free-to-play game makes me a tad cautious of game recommendations from strangers going forward. We have reached out to Valve for comment on what more can be done to protect users from malware on Steam.

Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins has given a new interview to the BBC in order to promote a charity stream, and the surprising thing is how downbeat a lot of it is. Blevins began his career as a pro gamer, and achieved some success, but was a relatively low-level streamer until 2017/18, when his fondness for Fortnite coincided with the game exploding in popularity.

This led to some incredible numbers for Blevins, who became synonymous with the game on Twitch: thanks to team-ups with stars like Drake and Travis Scott, some streams were pulling in just under 700,000 live viewers. He was so big that in 2020 Epic added Ninja skins to the game. These days Blevin is still huge: the third most-popular streamer on Twitch, with over 67 million followers across platforms. But those kinds of numbers are now beyond him (or most anyone), and elements of the internet won't let him forget it.

Blevins says every time he streams the "haters" are straight in to "berate" him for his lower viewership numbers:

"I think I'm the only streamer on the planet who was pulling 100,000 viewers [per stream] consistently, but now I get like seven or eight thousand across Twitch and YouTube," said Blevins. "So that's something that the Internet and trolls remind me of every day and the last couple of years have been rough."

Obviously Blevins can console himself with the many, many millions he's made streaming, but at the same time it's not nice for anyone to get a load of abuse "literally every day" when they're just doing their thing. Blevins' moderators use the ban-hammer liberally on such folk, but as we all know the internet in this respect is like a game of whack-a-mole.

Blevins understandably (and I would say accurately) puts his own fall in viewers down to a drop in the popularity of Fortnite, but said "I still love it and have a community that is strong and stays with me. I'm a gamer and an entertainer at heart—it's in my blood."

The interview was given to promote of Blevins' 24-hour charity stream, which is live now, and raising funds which go towards skin cancer detection and prevention. Last year medics discovered two cancerous moles on the streamer's skin, which were subsequently removed.

"Me and my wife were going to give to this cause no matter what because it's going to be important to us for the rest of our lives," says Blevins. "But it's not just about us giving our money, it's the awareness aspect too."

The stream will feature guest appearances from doctors, has a target of raising $250,000 and Blevins says he'll make a large donation himself: but he especially wants to encourage us all to get our own moles checked.

Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service is due to receive a significant upgrade later this month, boosting the top tier subscription's capabilities to what it describes as "RTX 5080 performance", thanks to some upgraded SuperPods. Our Jacob briefly got his hands on the upgrade at an Nvidia event and came away fairly impressed, but I found myself curious.

What's it like in comparison to an actual RTX 5080 machine? And could it really fool me into believing I was playing my games locally, as opposed to streaming through a home broadband connection?

To find out, I've been granted early access to the new top-tier GeForce Now subscription—and I've been directly comparing it to the experience of using one of our Cyberpower benchmarking PCs. It's an RTX 5080-equipped beastie we use for testing, and certainly belongs in the upper echelons of performance machines in 2025, what with its AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, 32 GB of speedy DDR5, and of course, Nvidia's second-from-the-top graphics card. Could the streaming service really compete with such a behemoth, crunching games away locally beneath my feet?

Being a cloud-based service, GFN's performance is limited by the capabilities of the connection it's running through, with at least a 65 Mbps line required for 2160p streaming at 120 fps. Still, my home broadband service is fairly chonky by UK standards, reporting a 382.6 Mbps download speed with a max 38.7 Mbps upload. Yep, British upload speeds suck compared to the US. We make better tea, though, so it all evens out.

According to GFN's connection tester, my humble internet line is more than enough for its purposes, so I immediately jumped into a game I'm familiar with—Doom: The Dark Ages. It's very well-optimised (as our Nick found in his performance testing), plenty fast-paced enough to reveal input lag issues, and runs superbly on a local RTX 5080 without any Multi Frame Generation help.

PC Gamer test platform
Supplied by Cyberpower | MSI

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G Ventus 3X OC White | Motherboard: MSI MPG X870E Edge Ti WiFi | RAM: Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) @ 6,000 MT/s | Cooler: MAG CoreLiquid i360 White | SSD: Spatium M480 Pro 2 TB | PSU: MPG A1000GS PCIe 5 | Case: MAG Pano 100R White

We've found MFG to be prone to the odd latency issue of its own when cranked to the guns, although the RTX 5080 usually handles it with aplomb. Still, for testing purposes I've been switching back and forth with MFG enabled and disabled, in order to see what sort of effect it might have on the latency stack.

GFN allows you to switch between five streaming quality settings, each having an impact on the performance, image quality, and data usage of the platform. Alongside Custom, Balanced and Data Saver settings, you also get Competitive Mode, which Nvidia says optimises your streaming settings for the lowest possible latency, (also boosting the frame rate up to a 360 fps maximum for esports-like shenanigans), and a new mode, Cinematic.

This is said to prioritise image quality for a more local-like experience, but Nvidia recommends Balanced Mode for "everyday testing", so that's exactly what I started with.

The first thing I noticed, swapping back and forth between the local machine and GFN, is the slight difference in performance. The RTX 5080 tier isn't using the same GPU you or I would pick up off the shelves, as what you're actually granted access to appears to be roughly half of an RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Series card, hence Nvidia's claims that you're actually getting "more than a 5080" with the Ultimate tier subscription. This has proven out in my testing, as I've regularly observed GFN's frame rate spiking five to 10 fps more than my local machine on average.

In Balanced mode, games run and stream at a 1440p resolution, which is trifling for an RTX 5080 (or equivalent) to run at high frame rates, even with MFG disabled. While the stream itself runs at 60 fps, having a 120 fps+ frame rate behind the scenes certainly makes for a locked-in, smooth-feeling experience.

It's so robust in this mode I could quite easily be fooled into thinking Doom: The Dark Ages was running locally, and have in fact double checked myself on occasion to make sure I haven't booted the game up on the actual RTX 5080 by mistake. The ping has reliably sat in the 21-24 ms range, which makes for a remarkably tight experience. I last sat down with the latest Doom game a few months ago, and jumping back in via GFN feels spookily familiar.

And, it must be said, my MFG-enhanced latency worries appear to have been for nowt, at least in this particular game. While I'd say Doom does look (and feel) a little wooly with MFG at its maximum 4x setting, I can replicate the effect on my test rig just as well as I can with the cloud-based solution.

It feels fine, though. And given the grunt of the RTX 5080-equivalent running underneath, dropping the Frame Gen down to 3x or 2x tightens things up significantly while maintaining an excellent frame rate, just the same as it does on a local machine.

Still, 1440p is one thing. Boosting things up to 4K streaming with GFN's Cinematic Mode, however, has introduced the odd glitch. By default, this mode streams at 60 fps, but at 4K this seems to cause an odd frame rate interaction—resulting in a reportedly high frame rate behind the scenes, but a slightly hitchy visual experience in person. It's a difficult thing to highlight on video, but if you pay close attention to the in-game capture below you can just about see the crunch, particularly when I use the shield dash.

For what it's worth I've had no such problems at 1440p, even when boosting the frames into high heaven with 4x MFG. Still, it's a black mark in GFN's scorebook, and one that made me switch to 120 fps 4K streaming via the Custom setting with dread. If it hitches at 4K 60 fps, what could it possibly be like at 120?

I needn't have worried. Oh my goodness does it work well at these settings. With one simple tweak, my hitching issue disappeared, and what I was left with is an experience that I'd say is remarkably similar to local. It's genuinely impressive just how good this game feels running at 4K over an internet connection, and how close it feels to the experience of it running under my desk.

GFN isn't entirely flawless, however. Running at this topped out setting, I have experienced the occasional stutter—and not of the traditional kind. While the ping reliably remains in the 21-24 ms range, and the frame rate has been free to soar off into the low 300s with 4x MFG enabled, the streaming delivery itself does occasionally glitch out for a second or so.

I first noticed it happening mid-game, but it's since been something I've been able to replicate somewhat reliably by pausing the game for 30 seconds, then jumping back into the action. It's an odd sort of glitch too, where it pauses on a frame, warps for a second in a way that makes me feel like someone's put something in my coffee, then carries on seamlessly like nothing ever happened.

All told, over multiple hours of testing, I've probably had this glitch occur less than 10 times, and that's including trying out my forced method. Still, it suggests that 120 fps 4K streaming is still something of a work in progress, not that we should really be surprised. It's a huge amount of data to be streamed at such a rate, and even with some AI-enhanced help, expecting a completely flawless experience is probably a bit much at this point.

And then there's the image quality. Here's an interesting effect—for most of my swapping back and forth, I struggled to tell the visual difference between the streamed version, and the game running on my rig. Right until I got to some brightly coloured sections, where… actually, it's easier if I just show you:

Above: Local RTX 5080 on the left, GeForce Now Ultimate on the right.

The GFN version here looks… bluer. More blue. Blue+. Personally, I kinda like the look, and I only noticed it when I put two screenshots side by side, as per above. After a head-scratching session with some other members of the hardware team, we figured this might be down to the colour quality not being set correctly—but changing it between 10-bit YUV 4:4:4 and the other colour settings still resulted in the same deep blue effect in this particular scene.

If I was to hazard a guess, I think it might be down to whatever AI-magic Nvidia is using in the video compression not entirely picking up the fog/haze at the same settings, making the image on the right appear more, err, blue. Which, in turn, indicates video compression is having an effect on the visuals to some degree.

But, I'd argue, not necessarily where it matters. Sure, if you pixel hunt you can find the odd difference, and side by side screenshot analysis of very brightly-lit areas can show a noticeable colour change—which could also be magnified by the difference between Nvidia's screenshot capture built into GeForce Now, and the screenshot capture of the local Nvidia overlay.

But with the bullets flying past your overly-muscled shoulders and the demon gore splattering in the breeze, it's difficult to tell which is which mid-game. I have noticed that the GFN version occasionally looks slightly softer around the edges in motion, before instantly crisping up as soon as you stop moving.

The effect is very slight, to the point where I really have to pay attention to notice it happening, but it's just about there. Still, the streamed image quality is very impressive nonetheless, and any visual softness under fast motion is something that I've found myself having to look out for, rather than noticing all the time.

I'm a real stickler for image quality, too, and have been known to abandon a game if a graphical artifact continually takes me out of the experience. Here? I'd happily play through the rest of Doom: TDA at these settings, and if you knew what a fusspot I was in real life, you'd know that means a lot.

Admittedly, though, Doom: The Dark Ages isn't going to reveal input lag issues the same way a multiplayer shooter would, so I've also tested out my failing reflexes in the Apex Legends shooting range, which resulted in this:

Yes, I know, my aim could do with some work. The game itself responds snappily, though, even if the ageing tendons behind it don't. I did try a few matches as well, but quickly became overwhelmed with the blinding lights and zoomer humour and had to be taken off for a nice cup of tea and an afternoon nap.

For the purpose of this test period Nvidia has enabled a limited suite of 20 games to try out with the new RTX 5080-equipped mode, which means I've been denied the glory of watching myself die once more in the jungles of Gray Zone Warfare, which is much more my speed.

Still, the input latency feels near-as-makes-no-difference quick to me, and certainly good enough for a multiplayer match or two. Switching back to my actual RTX 5080 rig in between rounds certainly hasn't boosted my performance, but then I'm not sure much would at this point. What's more important to me is the feel, and whether I can tell the difference between whether I'm streaming, or running the game locally. And, I'll be honest, in everything I've tested so far, the two are remarkably close. Eerily so, in fact.

Which has made me wonder about the future of PC gaming as a whole. Yes, I've experienced the odd glitch, and yes, you can sometimes tell the difference in image quality. GFN still isn't a perfect solution, and I would still say a powerful gaming PC still provides a better experience overall.

But that is absolutely to be expected. It's also worth pointing out the machine currently humming away next to my chair as I type is worth several thousand dollars. The GeForce Now Ultimate tier is currently $20 a month.

And while part of me really, really wants to reject the idea of moving my gaming to the ever-ephemeral cloud on principle alone, I have to admit the experience of using GFN for gaming has been an eye-opening one, to the point where I think I'd be happy to recommend it to someone looking to play highly demanding games, without an uber-expensive mega PC.

Long term, I'll be interested to see if my 4K 60 fps hitching issues persist, or whether it's simply a bug to be ironed out over time. But for now, I think I have to live with the idea that, for the most part, I can no longer reliably tell whether a game I'm playing is being streamed, or running next to me—and that GFN feels remarkably like a solution that might undercut our beloved home PCs in the years to come.

Perhaps I should be pleased about that, given it might bring more PC gamers, of a sort, into the fold. Our hobby is often criticised for being prohibitively expensive when it comes to the hardware requirements, and rightly so. Could GeForce Now be the eventual solution that makes owning a power-hungry, silly-expensive gaming PC feel, well, old-fashioned?

From my testing, I think it's already well on its way. Anyone looking for a cloud streaming writer? Nope, I thought not. Shame.

Should you wish to record your vocals for the purpose of gaming, meetings, or a podcast or two, there are a wealth of brilliant microphone options available to you. And, it must be said, quite a few of those brilliant microphones are made by Shure, a company so entrenched in the audio recording space it might as well have set up a tent. However, if content creation is your game, you might be considering upgrading from a regular USB-connected mic into the deep waters of XLR-based audio capture, and if so, Shure says it has you covered.

The Shure SM4 is the sort of microphone you might find in a home recording studio, aka your long-haired mate's garage which he's handily plastered with bits of egg crate and the odd spiky piece of foam. It's a condenser microphone with a cardioid polar pattern, which means it's designed to pick up both at close range and at a distance, and is appropriate not just for recording vocals, but also capturing instruments, ambient sounds, or really anything you might want to pick up in a small room.

It's also been heavily shielded to prevent unwanted RF noise from wireless devices, and comes with a 1-inch brass dual diaphragm capsule that, on paper at least, is a major upgrade over the units you'll find in most desktop mics. And, it must be said, it's not cheap.

The microphone alone will run you $219/£209 for the basic unit with a boom arm adapter clip, but Shure has provided me with the full $299/£275 Studio Kit, which includes an elastic-sprung shockmount, a detachable magnetic pop filter (designed to complement the built-in pop filter in the mic itself) and a handy-dandy carrying case for taking it on the move.

What it doesn't include is the +48 V DC phantom-powered XLR recording interface you'll need to connect it to your PC, the appropriate cable, or an appreciable amount of talent. The first two of those things, however, are available these days for sub-$100 sums, and as someone who's worked in content creation in some form or fashion for large parts of my career, I have a few of them knocking around. They represent a step above the plug and play, shake-and-bake audio of the casual user, and a bold move towards pushing your audio talents out towards the big wide world of content creation.

And, it must be said, when we edge towards semi-professional microphone territory, the prices have a tendency to shoot up rather rapidly—which means the Shure SM4 is actually fairly well-priced for its market segment. Still, it's a lot of moolah for a microphone, and whether you need one or not is something I'll be getting on to later.

For now, let's focus on the mic itself. It's a gloriously well-made bit of kit, with the sort of weight and dusky finish that I'd associate with studio-grade gear. This is going to sound like an odd thing to say, but it even smells professional. Off to the side of the shockmount is a 5/8 inch thread, with an included 3/8 inch brass adapter ring for different sizes of boom arm mounts, along with another 5/8 inch thread hidden in the base of the mic itself.

Nope, no desktop stand for you. This is a microphone designed to be used with an arm, and Shure will sell you one for $120. Here's a little tip, though—while the Shure model is likely to be pretty good, you can pick up a $40 unit that will probably do the job damn near as well. A fancy one is a nice thing to have, but I've been using a pair of these Tonor boom arms for years without incident. Every saving helps, right?

Attached to an appropriate boom arm and XLR cable, and plugged in to a $69 M-Audio XLR to USB interface I have lying around (I had to blow the dust off, but it does the job adequately), the Shure SM4 reveals itself to be a simply lovely-sounding microphone. With a 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response and the benefits of all that shielding, combined with its 1-inch brass capsule, it's got a tendency to reject unwanted noise and capture a warm, defined tone, with the sort of smooth-yet-edgy clarity I'd associate with some very expensive studio microphones.

Shure recommends placing it between one and six inches away from your mouth for vocal capture, which means the extra, magnetically-attached pop filter comes in handy for reducing plosives. The built-in version does an admirable job, but I'd say the extra unit takes away any worries about accidentally recording a "puh" and "buh"-filled vocal capture in a hurry. Plus, given the elasticated shock mount and the mics tendency to reject unwanted noise, capturing a studio-like vocal tone is about as easy as could be.

It's remarkable how well the noise-rejection is engineered into the physical microphone itself, which means for vocal work you could absolutely get away without software noise cancelling, and that's more than I can say for most cheaper models.

This is a creator microphone, though, which means I'd better dust off my guitar and have a little noodle to test its instrument-capturing chops. I don't have a front room stacked with valve amps anymore, so what you're listening to here is a raw recording of my rusty playing through a tiny Boss Katana practice amp with zero added compression, studio-trickery, EQ, or effects, beyond a bit of delay and chorus on the amplifier itself. Behold, dear reader—my diminishing talent:

Forgive the sloppy guitar work, it's been a while. Anyway, I'd say that's a pretty good instrument mic alright, especially as it's capturing a tiny budget amp in an un-treated room through a bargain-basement recording interface with no filters, noise gates, or tweaks. It pains me slightly to put up a musical recording without EQ-ing out the hiss of the amp and adjusting the sound, but this is as raw as it gets—and as raw signals go, the little Shure captures extremely well.

That being said, I'd perhaps shy away from putting it in front of anything capable of titanic amounts of volume, simply because it's a condenser model. The diaphragm inside that brass capsule will likely take more of a beating than most, but something dynamic like the classic Shure SM57 is the better choice if you're planning on close-micing something grunty. Condensers are more sensitive, fragile beasts in general, although this one feels like it's been specced highly enough to take more abuse than your average model, at least.

The question you should be asking yourself, though, is how invested you are in the idea of home recording. If you're already equipped with an XLR audio interface and the right cables and boom arms, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Shure SM4 as a brilliant all-round creator microphone. Should you just be starting out, however, then I think it'd be worth taking a look at your exact use case.

For those looking for a good desktop-based vocal microphone, we've got a whole best microphone for gaming guide that should have you covered. And if it's pure podcast-style vocal capture you're after, I think you'd be better served with the Shure MV7+. It doesn't have the same wide capture and versatility as the SM4, but it's a USB Type-C plug and play device that really takes the hassle out of recording your spoken-word vocals at home.

And if it's streaming audio you want, the SteelSeries Alias Pro goes as far as to provide you with a good audio interface, too, complete with some streamer-friendly programmable controls on the front, for similar money. It also neglects to provide you with an included boom arm, but bringing an interface into the equation for similar cash is difficult to argue with.

That being said, if you really are taking your first steps into building a home recording studio of your own, or perhaps upgrading an existing one beyond USB-connected gear, I'm sold on the idea of buying a Shure SM4 as a do-it-all solution. Its reliance on outside equipment is really only a reflection of the nature of high-end audio, and while USB-based all-in-one mics are fine for specific purposes, if you're looking to take a step towards, say, creating content for a living, you will likely want to consider buying a more capable setup.

The Shure SM4 would certainly make a worthy addition to that arsenal, and in that sense, I'm happy to recommend it. For your average user, however, it's likely more than you really need.

If you use OBS to stream, and most of all if you're hooking up multiple PCs to broadcast, you may have noticed "severe stuttering, lag, and choppy audio/video". According to the latest Windows release known issues, you aren't the only one.

As pointed out in the latest Windows 11 Version 24H2 update post, OS build 26100.4946 (which launched on August 12) has broken NDI use for some streamers. Over in forums like the VideoEngineering Subreddit, users have been complaining about 'sudden lag and framedrops' in NDI streams for a while now.

Effectively, NDI is an interface that allows communication between many devices and achieves low-latency video and audio transferring. In streaming, this means you can hook up a camera, computer, and any other device into a single stream easily without injecting latency.

To give a bit more production value, you can use NDI on OBS (a streaming/recording software), where you can then swap between scenes. When you may want to swap scenes on the fly for a joke, or to ease transitioning from one game to another, making sure you can do it at the right time is important.

This is before mentioning that some streamers have dedicated rigs for streaming, so they can use all the resources in their main PC to run games or programs. Stutters not only worsen the quality of the stream (and could therefore lose viewers) but can also cause the stream to drop entirely.

Latest Windows update wreaking havoc on NDI feeds from r/VIDEOENGINEERING

OBS and NDI not working with the latest Windows update means that some streamers may have had to change their setup to accommodate the problem until it is fixed. Luckily, there is a temporary fix until Microsoft gets to the bottom of it.

"To work around the issue, NDI recommends manually changing the NDI Receive Mode to use TCP or UDP instead of RUDP." To do this, you can download and install the NDI Tools pack, then launch it. From here, go to the advanced tab and swap the receive mode to TCP or UDP. If you stream from one computer to the other, you will naturally have to do this fix on both.

RUDP, or Reliable User Datagram Protocol, is faster (and therefore provides less latency) than TCP (which is the highest quality), whilst being more consistent than UDP (User Datagram Protocol). Being the best of both worlds, it's the recommended and default choice for streaming. Even though this fix should suffice, streams will likely be a bit more stable when RUDP is back for users.

Microsoft is reportedly investigating the problem, and more information is expected to arrive soon.

Nvidia recently announced its "biggest launch in GeForce Now RTX" history which includes an upgrade to RTX 5080 performance, and last week I got some hands-on time with the new and improved game streaming service. As a big proponent of local, discrete, good ol' fashioned hardware, I wasn't quite expecting how good it feels to play GeForce Now (GFN) on the latest Blackwell servers: I could not tell the difference. Like, at all.

At least, that was the case with Apex Legends at 1440p on low to medium settings. I'm talking of course, about latency, here, as that's the main concern with competitive shooters, which is a genre that's usually more my jam than the latest AAA singleplayer games.

You'll get bigger benefits at 1080p, though. One of the upgrades coming to GFN is the ability to play at 360 fps at 1080p, and Nvidia had Overwatch 2 running at these settings with an LDAT (Latency and Display Analysis Tool) precisely measuring the total system latency. This is a little device that attaches to the monitor and records the time between pressing the button and the gunfire appearing on screen.

I pressed the heck out of that little button and I don't think I saw it go above 20 ms, most often about 17 ms and sometimes as low as 16 ms. That's low even for a local, non-streamed setup.

I found Apex Legends at 1440p more impressive than this, though, primarily because this is the resolution I usually play at. I got to actually run around and (attempt to) click heads in Apex on RTX 5080 GFN at this resolution, and I couldn't tell it was streamed gameplay at all. I used to no-life competitive shooters like Counter-Strike, and I can tell you I would be happy playing that game competitively at 1440p if it maintains that level of snappiness.

I spoke to Nvidia GeForce Now product manager Michael McSorley, and he explained: "When we say 5080 performance, it's actually, performance wise, more than a 5080 in some ways." That's because these "super pods", as they call them, that run the new GFN instances, don't just seat RTX 5080 graphics cards in there. A super pod is a bespoke Blackwell server setup specifically for GFN workloads, with future AI features in mind, too.

McSorley continues, "when we say 5080 performance, we're really just trying to say, from a pure rasterisation standpoint and performance standpoint, it's pretty similar to what a 5080 consumer GPU is."

Whatever the technical details, I'm impressed. The improvements to latency, which the company says it has focused on in addition to visual fidelity, certainly seemed clear to me.

That's not to say I think it's perfect, however. While my experience of low latency was great at 1440p on low settings in Apex, I noticed a lot of latency in a recent Borderlands title (no, I couldn't tell which one) running at 4K over GFN, and ditto Black Myth: Wukong. Frame rates were high, presumably thanks to frame gen, which also increases latency, but latency was pretty awful. Even for casual gaming, in my opinion.

This is part of what worries me about the direction PC gaming is heading. The RTX 50 series' Multi-Frame Gen (MFG) is great for frame rates, sure, but it does increase latency, especially if you're starting at a lower frame rate—and MFG might arguably encourage game devs to not optimise for pre-frame gen frame rates. Combine that with streaming, however optimised the experience, and you have extra latency.

I asked about getting this balance between visual quality and latency, and McSorley said: "When you look at the most compelling FPS or competitive titles on GeForce Now, they tend to not require, you know, Multi Frame Generation in general, to get the highest graphics fidelity, because that's not really that style of game."

On the other hand, there are "these immersive kinds of games" such as Assassin's Creed, "that you're going to sit back and play, where, if you're adding 20 milliseconds of latency, it's not going to be one that's detrimental to the overall experience, right?"

That's the theory, anyway, but as I said, I did think the latency was a little much in these high-fidelity "immersive" games on the highest settings. But again, I don't know whether that's a mark against GFN or frame gen. If I had to bet, I'd say frame gen, given the low latency I witnessed in Apex and 1080p Overwatch. Though I suppose it could also be added by the "Cinematic Quality Streaming" mode, which improves the video filter, offers a wider colour gamut, and so on.

The upgraded "more than a 5080" GFN experience will be rolling out pretty much right away, although games will be limited to start, with more compatible games being announced regularly. I'm told that we should see GeForce Now Thursdays—where new games are announced to the platform—including a section showing which of these games will be able to run on the new Blackwell hardware.

Apparently, "at some point, we're certainly going to upgrade our entire fleet of servers", but "we have to be strategic in how we do that."

Though I suppose there's no telling exactly how long that will take. For all we know, it could take up until the next GPU generation, though I'm hopeful it won't take that long.

The times have changed since begging my mum to buy me an AverMedia capture card because it was the only one that would work without a dedicated PC. PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PCs (assuming you have Windows) all have built-in DVRs, and they're all rather good. This has meant that, for a casual creator or just someone who wants to show off clips, they're almost entirely unnecessary.

To keep up with this changing market, there are now tons of unique capture card options. Just being able to record was fine a decade ago, but now the likes of Elgato and AverMedia are offering a value proposition to potential buyers: one that can beat your built-in DVR.

In the likes of the Live Gamer Duo, this means the ability to stream multiple inputs at once. For the AverMedia Elite Go GC313Pro, its selling point is the fact that it can be used to record handheld gaming PCs (and can also charge them while doing so). Even those without a central gimmick will give you stronger console capture, or simply ease some of the burden that a built-in capture software may pose to your gaming rig's performance.

But none of this means you need one. The Xbox Game Bar function can record easily and quickly at 1080p, and can even be used retroactively to record a clip you hit twenty seconds ago. Then, if you want 4K, your GPU drivers, or free software, such as OBS Studio, can do that. It can be taxing on your system to record, then stream in 4K, so some streamers opt for a secondary PC for streaming. In that case, there's a great justification for a capture card on PC. However, if you aren't quite that dedicated and have a decently strong rig, built-in software will do just fine.

The biggest sell to the average person who wants to make videos right now is that capture cards are great at handling consoles. The fact that the majority of capture cards interact with PCs means you can stream from a PS5 to a PC, run it through an overlay in software like OBS, and have actual, genuine interactivity and production value in your stream.

So, the Elgato 4K S offers a taste of the likes of the Elgato 4K X, with its 4K capture and intuitive software at a cheaper price bracket, and it does it well. The 4K X comes with a higher fps passthrough and recording, and offers HDMI 2.1 rather than HDMI 2, but it's also almost $100 more.

The Elgato 4K S is very easy to set up. In the box, it comes with a braided USB Type-C and a braided HDMI cable. In terms of I/O, the 4K S has an HDMI output, input, and a USB Type-C to record data to your rig, then a 3.5 mm jack. Simply plug your console or PC into the box, with the other end going into your recording/streaming rig, and you're ready to go. Elgato's own software can display your game or record footage, but you can also send it straight to third-party apps, such as OBS Studio.

The 4K S is a very light device, at just 90 g. It's so light, in fact, that I angled my HDMI cable so the weight of it didn't prop the box up at a funny angle. Other than that, setting it up is an intuitive process, and one that takes no more than a couple of minutes to hook up to a console.

I ran into the limits of console DVR recently, when trying to get footage of Donkey Kong Banananza on Nintendo Switch 2. Recording just 30 seconds at a time means that, should you want a minute or two of gameplay, you need to tactically splice clips together and hope it looks smooth. A perfect case for a capture device, then.

The first time I plugged the Elgato into the Nintendo Switch 2, however, the color looked overshot and saturated. In a rather classic move, unplugging it and plugging it back in again fixed my issue, and I haven't had it again since. The Elgato 4K S not only solved my problem with the Switch 2's built-in capture functionality but made it look better too.

Comparing textures, the Elgato records at a higher max resolution (4K vs 1080p), and it certainly shows in the captured footage. The difference isn't quite as large as I was expecting, though, and this is partly down to the fact that the Nintendo Switch 2 has very good (if fairly limited) recording functionality.

If you would like to stream from your Nintendo Switch 2, a capture card is absolutely necessary, as the Switch 2 doesn't have that functionality. The same can not be said of the other two major consoles.

Grab a headset and a controller, and have a strong enough internet connection, and you're ready to stream on a PS5 or Xbox Series X. You can simulcast to Twitch and YouTube at the same time without restreaming from a different platform, but it's certainly good enough should you be tied to one platform.

You technically can record 4K on PlayStation, but the console doesn't play too nicely with it. It forces clips to be recorded in WebM, and you have to manually record and change it to 4K in settings, which means you can't retroactively record in 4K.

To view those 4K clips on PS5, you have to close any apps or games that are open. Things are a bit simpler with the Elgato, and comparing both sets of footage with Nvidia's ICAT (Image Comparison Analysis Tool), they look nearly identical to me. The Elgato comes off a bit brighter, and PS5 feels a tad deeper, but to most, these will look essentially the same.

So, you can record 4K on PS5 without a capture card with some effort. If, however, you want to stream, add a webcam, and transition from scene to scene, you will still want a capture card for that. No matter which device I have it plugged into, the Elgato 4K S performs very well in passthrough mode. Though the max capture is 4K resolution at 60 fps, 1080p can get all the way up to 240 fps in passthrough mode (down to 120 in capture). Placing my PC monitor right next to my TV and comparing the two, both perform with nearly no latency, and I still manage to be as okay as I usually am at Fortnite.

The passthrough is so good I've found myself opening up the Elgato app and playing some console games on my PC, just because I don't fancy turning on the big 50-inch TV I use for console gaming. I've played hours worth of Killing Floor 3, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with no problems at all, and I see myself continuing to do so in those moments when my partner wants to use the main TV for something else.

Elgato's software is intuitive and easy to use, if a little barebones. You plug in your device, open up the app, and now you have the ability to record and take screenshots of whatever you are playing. You can adjust resolution on the fly, which is pretty handy should you have storage concerns (same), and this links out easily to the Elgato forums if you run into any problems.

Coming in at $160, this is a competitive price for a 4K capture card, and at MSRP, I would almost never go for the Elgato Game Capture Neo for $40 less. That extra cost is worth it to me for 4K over 1080p capture, and a higher fps passthrough (with the latter limited to 60 fps).

In and of itself, this little capture card rocks. It's small, easy to set up, relatively pain-free and offers good quality recording. It also offers near-instantaneous passthrough. However, it's more expensive than the AverMedia Live Gamer Ultra S GC553Pro, while not offering 5.1 audio. Given the passthrough is so great on this, the more immersive offerings of 5.1 sound would certainly be welcome, especially when you get it from the GC553Pro for cheaper.

At MSRP, the only reason I could think to put the Elgato over the GC553Pro is for its software or the position of its outputs. I prefer having the USB-C and HDMI ports all on one side, like the Elgato, but I don't think I could possibly argue that's worth $10 more.

With both capture cards seeing discounts in the sales, I think it will be a toss-up for best capture card, but as things stand, it sits just inches behind its rival. This is arguably the best Elgato mid-range capture card you can buy right now, but that's still not enough to put it in first place against the stiff competition.

The world of 4K webcams feels like it's come on leaps and bounds in the last year or so. Despite this, 4K is still a mostly superfluous resolution for webcams to support right now. With some apps not even supporting 4K and other apps (looking at you, Discord) requiring you to pay more just for the privilege, many of those with 4K webcams will resort to 1080p anyway. Even if you want to buy one to make videos, you'd likely be better off with something more dedicated, as a 4K webcam is certainly a bit of a niche choice.

However, we are slowly starting to achieve price equilibrium, and some 4K webcams are perfectly decent just in 1080p mode. The first time I got hit with this feeling was when I was testing the Obsbot Tiny 2 Lite, and now with the Emeet Pixy, I feel it again.

For $160/£146, you not only get 4K resolution support with a Sony sensor, but you get AI tracking, plus a whole load of neat features. The Pixy is not just a barebones 4K webcam; it offers plenty of other reasons to grab one, and some of those are genuinely compelling.

The Emeet Pixy comes with dual cameras: One 4K imaging camera and one AI-assisted camera for better targeting and focus. This sounds neat in concept, but whether or not this design will stick around is going to depend on performance, and I can say autofocus and targeting felt about as accurate as the Tiny 2 Lite.

In fact, the two webcams have comparable cameras across the board. They both have AI-based hand gesture control, they're both placed on a gimbal to allow them to spin around, and they both offer 4K in a relatively budget package.

In regard to picture quality, I prefer the Tiny 2 Lite. Placed side by side, with both pictures unedited, I find the Emeet to be a tad more saturated and more washed out. Lines feel sharper, reds feel darker, and lights are overexposed. This is definitely just a preference here, but I like a more neutral look, which I can then edit after the fact. If I want a bit of sharpness, I'd usually opt to enhance that in an editor, rather than having that in the raw file.

The Pixy does, however, have elements that feel a tad more pronounced. Hairs in my admittedly unkempt beard look more distinct and less blurry than the Tiny 2 Lite, and there's a sense of depth with the two cameras that is noticeable in recordings. Both webcams record at a solid and stable quality, though I prefer the Lite 2.

I found colour correction a bit harder to do with the raw file from the Emeet than the Tiny 2 Lite, and even attempting to customise them in their respective software couldn't achieve parity between the two images.

The Pixy is very easy to set up. It comes with a firm, weighty stand that clips onto the top of your monitor, and you can thread the webcam on top via its bottom. This means you can technically pop it onto a tripod should you want, making it a viable choice as a webcam for the Nintendo Switch 2.

I do think it's a tad bulky, though. The Pixy sits above the stand (as you can unthread it should you choose to), which leaves it hanging awkwardly over the top. On the absolutely huge Asus ROG PG48UQ I use at work, it doesn't look too large. However, sitting on a 16-inch gaming laptop, it makes the screen wobble.

In meetings, the microphone quality in the Pixy is surprisingly solid. You could use it in a quick meeting and most wouldn't notice, which is about what you can reasonably hope for in a webcam mic.

Emeet Studio is a decent if fairly basic bit of software that allows you to customise where the Pixy looks, plus add effects, change the location of the gimbal, and swap between resolutions. The most confusing part about the software is figuring out which one is for the Pixy, as Emeet has a big selection of software available for all its webcams.

By holding your hand up, the Emeet Pixy changes from a static mode to a tracking one. This tracking mode is as responsive as it should be, though a tad niche. Thanks to being on a gimbal, you can effectively give a presentation with it pointing at you, and it will follow you as you walk around.

The software can also enable a whiteboard mode for showing off graphs, stats, drawings, etc, on screen. I found this to reliably track a whiteboard in practice, though I don't personally have a use for it. Still, someone might, and it's a nice extra for those looking for a more productivity-focused cam.

The marketing materials for the Emeet Pixy put an emphasis on AI script generation integration, and this comes in the form of chatbot access. In the Emeet app itself, you can click a little script generation tab that can query Gemini, Claude, Chat GPT, and Grok. Effectively, you give it prompts, and it will generate a script which you then read while presumably recording with the webcam.

It comes with six pre-generated prompts for scripts(but you can write your own) and spits out cam position information, shot scale, and narration. This information can only be fully gleaned by exporting it. This means, from start to finish, you need to click the generation box, generate your script, etc, export your data, then open up the Excel spreadsheet and read from it.

This is effectively just injecting a chatbot into the program, and is somehow less intuitive than just using Google to open up ChatGPT or a similar competitor. Even at that, I'd recommend just writing your own scripts.

Given that the scripts I got back from it weren't of the highest quality, it's not exactly intuitive, and the appeal of YouTube and similar video platforms is their authenticity, I couldn't honestly recommend this. The AI used in the tracking is good; the other AI part is not. Like the Tiny 2 Lite, it does occasionally grab the face of someone else in the PC Gamer office and follow them, but centring it back on me isn't really a problem.

One thing that did give me pause was the lack of any privacy filter. If you want the camera to look elsewhere while it's turned on, you physically have to flick it down. It may attempt to line itself back up again, assuming it fell accidentally, but holding it in place soon solves that problem. It also has blue light when on, so I soon learned to tune it out. You can also make the webcam automatically enter privacy mode after a certain time via the software if you're a tad paranoid.

For twenty dollars less than the Obsbot Tiny 2 Lite, the Emeet Pixy puts up a fight as the best high-end webcam out there. Ultimately, if it were my money on the line, though, I'd take the smaller frame and smoother image quality of the Tiny 2 for a bit more. I could just as easily hold out for a small sale, too.

A good microphone doesn't need to have a million features to make an impact. Wrap a high-quality capsule in a sturdy frame, convert the output to a USB connection, and provide a stand. That's about all you get with our current favourite budget gaming microphone, the Amazon Basics USB condenser mic, and it works brilliantly.

It's also roughly what you got with the original HyperX SoloCast, and its replacement, the HyperX SoloCast 2, looks like much of the same—except with a redesigned chassis and some tilt functionality thrown into the mix. We were big fans of the original, but it's pretty hard to find now, so are we looking at the return of a budget gaming mic classic?

HyperX describes the SoloCast 2 as "an all-in-one mic that doesn't ask for more", and the keep-it-simple-stupid philosophy seems to be hard at work here. It's a cardioid-patterned condenser mic with a USB Type-C to USB Type-A connection, capturing up to 96 kHz 24-bit audio through its weeny little capsule.

The stand, however, tilts. Oh, and you get a foam pop-filter built in, which is pretty much a necessity if you want to get any microphone up close for a "hot-radio", podcast-like sound. It's also got mic arm threads underneath, which should make it a good candidate for attaching to a boom arm and getting up close and personal.

Should you wish for more, however, HyperX has also announced the FlipCast, a chonky affair that's more than a little reminiscent of our best podcast microphone pick, the Shure MV7+, except with a load of bells and whistles piled on top. HyperX says it's capable of "broadcast-quality" audio capture, with up to a 192 Hz, 32-bit sample rate.

It's also got a multifunctional wheel onboard for quick gain adjustments, monitor mixing, and headphone volume, complete with a tap-to-mute button and some rather shiny RGB lighting. There's also an onboard high-pass filter, which should cut out unwanted low-frequency background noises for a cleaner capture.

Both XLR and USB Type-C connections are supported, so this really seems like HyperX taking a swing at the ultra-premium microphone market. There are some big fish swimming in those waters, though, and it does make me question whether potential customers will go for a gaming-branded mic over something more established, like Shure's alternatives. It also looks a bit... fiddly. Unlike the SoloCast 2, simplicity doesn't appear to have been high on the priority list here.

Pricing is key, and HP has been in touch to confirm that the SoloCast 2 will retail for $60, while the FlipCast will be $230. That's a pretty good price for the SoloCast 2 at least, although the FlipCast will have to work pretty hard to justify all that moolah, in my opinion. Still, if it's a genuine competitor to the likes of Shure, perhaps that pricing will make sense under review.

The Amazon Basics mic is often available for a mere $25, and while the Shure MV7+ is even pricier than the HyperX at $279, it's also one of the best close-up mics I've ever heard. It looks like I'll have my hands full with new microphones to test in the coming months—and I'll be keen to see what both of these beasties are capable of when I hook them into my machine.

This may scandalise some younger readers, but once upon a time you'd turn on the telly and simply watch what was on. The question of what to watch these days has only gotten more complex, with a wealth of streaming services now vying for your eyeballs. Well, Amazon may be touting AI as the answer—I mean, just judging by the undisclosed amount they've thrown behind startup Fable.

The Edward Saatchi-owned outfit has already been around for a few years, debuting with VR game Wolves in the Walls back in 2019. What's piqued Amazon's interest more recently is Fable's AI-generated 'streaming' service Showrunner (via Variety). Hop into the Discord, and you can start mashing out prompt-based animated scenes that are all about as bleak, monotone, and ugly as I was personally expecting.

Having already run as a closed alpha test with 10,000 users, Showrunner is currently free to use. The recent public launch offers a few 'story worlds' to plug prompts into, all powered by Fable’s SHOW-2 AI model. Exit Valley is a popular 'show' on the Discord, but very much reads to me like shockingly average adult animation that's trying way too hard. Using Exit Valley's AI stage you too can generate scenes like this one, where a cartoony Tom Cruise jabbers with a Kim Kardashian that refuses to skip arm day—and also inexplicably sounds progressively more Australian with every rep.

Fable wants to eventually implement a 'credits' system for creators, planning to charge between $10 and $20 a month to generate more AI scenes. However, all Showrunner content will remain free to view in the hopes of encouraging folks to watch and share clips on third-party video platforms like YouTube (where Showrunner's f-bomb heavy schtick may not even get demonetised).

Edward Saatchi told Variety that the vision for Showrunner is to create something "playable," in a not entirely dissimilar way to mashing dolls together in a dollhouse. He said, "The ‘Toy Story of AI’ isn’t just going to be a cheap ‘Toy Story.’ Our idea is that ‘Toy Story of AI’ would be playable, with millions of new scenes, all owned by Disney."

Dropping the big D isn't just a powerful name drop, as Fable is apparently in talks with the house of mouse about licensing its IP for Showrunner. But even with such upfront ambition, even Saatchi is saying: "Maybe nobody wants this and it won’t work."

In conversation with Variety, he says this within the wider context of his earlier ventures into VR not taking off as he had hoped. But Saatchi also concedes that "today AI can’t sustain a story beyond one episode," and that the technology is perhaps better suited to "deeply episodic shows with characters largely resetting every episode — sitcoms, police procedurals, space exploration."

I mean, points for self-awareness, but I'd argue even traditional intrigue-of-the-week shows often feature season spanning narrative arcs or even simple callbacks. Don't worry, I'll spare you my impassioned defence of Elementary as the genuinely better take on 'Sherlock Holmes, but make it a cop procedural' from the 2010s. Anyway, besides that, I was already looking at Showrunner's dollhouse and loudly wondering what the point of it all is.

For one thing, deciding what I want to watch via traditional streaming services already requires work amounting to a low-level research project—I already enjoy that work, so why would I put my energy into the well-draining black hole of AI? For another thing, 'playing' with established characters and IP just makes me think about the good old, wonky days of machinima—to say absolutely nothing about the fanfic burning a hole on my hard drive.

With these creative outlets and more already available to me, I don't really feel the need to play within the confines of Showrunner's corporate, AI playground.

One of the joys of writing our Budget or bust feature is the possibility of stumbling across a diamond in the rough, and that's exactly what's happened to me recently. I've been testing the Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone of late, and I can now confirm that it's a brilliant little audio-grabber for a mere $26/£23.

That's right, $26. That makes the weeny Amazon unit less than the price of takeout for two, and after my time with it, I reckon it's worth at least twice as much. I've just added it in as our new pick for the best budget gaming microphone, and if you'll allow me to expound, I'll tell you exactly why.

For a start, it delivers everything you need, nothing you don't. I was expecting a flimsy chassis, nasty materials, and a stand that flops around like a dead fish for this sort of cash, and absolutely none of those expectations were met. The little Basics mic feels remarkably well-built, and I'd put good money on it lasting for years.

Then there's the sound. While I wouldn't go as far as to call the Basics a studio-grade mic, it's genuinely excellent at picking up and reproducing your voice at a distance. You don't get any gain controls here (just a well-placed mute button with an LED indicator), but in practice, you don't really need them.

Shove it on your desk at a reasonable distance, and the little Amazon unit will pick you up just fine. Which is just as well, really, as the cable's a bit short. Nothing's perfect, I'm afraid, so you'll need to go digging around in the cupboards for a spare one if your PC is a floor-dwelling machine.

But what's not "just fine" is the audio quality. Sure, it's not the sort of rich, super-shiny audio capture that'll have audiophiles falling head over heels, but the Amazon USB mic records a fantastically clear, surprisingly rounded tone, especially for a microphone this attractively priced.

I'm used to the idea that ultra-budget audio gear is rubbish, because let's face it, it often is. The Amazon mic has shown me the error of my ways, though, and manages to capture a tone so thoroughly decent-sounding, if you'd told me it came from an $80-$100 unit, I would have absolutely believed you.

Above: The Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone recorded in a desktop position, from a reasonable distance away.

Again, it's not the best thing I've ever heard. But for $26? That sound quality is remarkable, I think you'll agree.

There is one more drawback to make note of, and it's a fairly big one: you don't get any software to play with. That means no noise cancelling, and being a condenser mic, that's a bit of a shame. Condenser units will pick up unwanted noises in the immediate vicinity, although it must be said that the Basic's cardioid pattern does seem to have well-judged limits, so it's not particularly noise-prone overall.

Other than that? It's a bit of a superstar. While those of you looking for a more professional sound will be better suited by one of our other best gaming microphone picks below, if all you need are the basics, and the basics done well, then the, err, Amazon Basics is probably for you.

Quick list

• Best overall: Shure MV6 USB Gaming Microphone
• Best budget: Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone
• Best mid-range: NZXT Capsule Elite
• Best USB bundle: Sennheiser Profile Streaming Set
• Best looking: HyperX Quadcast S
• Best podcasting: Shure MV7+
• Best streaming: SteelSeries Alias Pro
• Best headset mic: Audio-Technica ATH-M50xSTS StreamSet

The best gaming microphone

There's a lot to be said for the simple things in life. For a start, they're often cheap—and hardware doesn't come much cheaper than this Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone. You can pick up one of these teeny-tiny little units for a mere $26/£23 at Amazon, although it must be said, that's the sort of price that makes me eye any piece of audio gear with suspicion.

Opening the packaging, however, reveals a surprisingly sturdy little microphone. While the chassis and stand might be plastic, it's of the thick, matte-textured variety that immediately makes me feel like I'm handling a well-built product. The grille is metal, the weight is reassuring, and the plastic ball joint in the base of the stand stays in position when you tilt it over.

Speaking of which, I find that design choice to be a little bizarre. Desktop microphones often tilt at the top of the pole, rather than the base, although I can't deny that the little Basics unit cocking its snoot at you from a jaunty angle makes for a cute addition to your desk. Still, even at its maximum angle, the Basics remains immune to falling over on a flat surface, despite the weight at the top of its frame.

Perhaps this explains the lower ball-joint dealio, and lends to the feeling that this mic has had much more thought put into its construction than you might expect for the price. Strap in here, folks: I think I sense a theme.

Being an Amazon Basics unit, you've probably deduced that you don't get many extras for your cash. Here you receive a microphone, a stand to screw it to, and a USB Type-C to Type-A cable that's ever so slightly too short—although for what it's worth, it did make it to the back of my desk-height PC.

If you keep your machine further away (or on the floor), you'll probably want to factor a longer cable into the equation to make it reach. This cable likes to kink, too, and isn't quite of the same quality as the rest of the setup.

The software features are… non-existent, actually. No software means no noise cancelling, and that always makes me raise an eyebrow when it comes to condenser microphones. Unlike dynamic mics, condenser models have a wider range of capture, which makes them prone to picking up a lot of unwanted noise. However, it also makes them well-suited to picking up vocals from a distance.

Which the little Amazon mic does admirably. I was genuinely impressed when I performed my first audio test with this mic, and it's been impressing me in a similar fashion ever since. It picks up well from a desktop position, and the vocal tone it captures is surprisingly rounded and clear for such a cheap capsule. It's not too noise-prone either, although you can definitely hear an ever-so-slight hiss from my laptop fans in the background.

Above: The Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone recorded from a desktop position.

Sure, the audio doesn't have the golden, "studio-like" quality you might expect from a really good (and likely, quite expensive) unit from the likes of Shure, but then this really isn't the little Basic's market. This is a mic designed to capture clear, rounded vocals from your desktop for an absolutely minimal outlay, and it's brilliant at it. It records at a 48 kHz 16-bit sample rate, which is realistically all you need to capture good sound. Sure, 24-bit would be nice, but it's really unnecessary for most users—and the Basics proves that principle in one fell swoop.

Like most condenser mics, it's going to capture more richness from your tone the closer you bring it to your lips. The Basics facilitates this by going one step further and allowing you to screw it into any boom arm with a 5/8-inch thread, which is pretty much all of them.

That means you can get it close up for podcast-like audio, and while it does get a little plosive if you bring it really close (a foam pop-filter would work wonders here), I'd say you could absolutely use this as a budget streaming mic. As long as you were careful with your distancing, of course.

Above: The Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone recorded close up, attached to a boom arm.

Plus, it's got a mute button on the front, which is downright handy if you plan on livestreaming your vocal musings to the internet. You'd be surprised how many budget mics omit this feature from the specs sheet (like the otherwise brilliant Razer Seiren Mini), but it's a positive, clicky affair with a little LED to tell you when you're on and when you're muted. Everything it needs to be, nothing less. Like the rest of this microphone, now I come to think of it.

The rubber base of the stand means it's fairly shock resistant, too, and unless you give it a right ol' bashing, the mic itself doesn't do that horribly-cheap thing of letting its outer frame ring through the capsule if you accidentally give it a tap. It'll capture a bump, sure, but it shouldn't have your listeners throwing their gaming headsets off in disgust.

So, I ask myself, what more do you need in a microphone than this? Well, the aforementioned noise-cancelling features would be nice. Perhaps some RGB-lit design touches would make it look nicer on a stream, and while the audio capture is excellent for the money, a more expensive microphone will make your vocals sound, well, more expensive, for lack of a better term.

I don't think the Amazon Basics mic is going to get much use in professional recording studios, naturally, but on your desk? I can't think of anything better for the cash.

Or anywhere near it, if I'm honest. It's genuinely remarkable that this $26 mic performs as well as it does, and it's a great example of the "keep it simple, stupid" design philosophy of which I am so fond. It's as plug-and-play as you like, feels like it will last for years, and sounds good enough to use pretty much anywhere you'd like to capture your vocal tones for all to hear.

Which makes it my new favourite budget gaming microphone, too. So if you'll excuse me, I've got the best gaming microphone guide to update. Join me over there to see all your other options, won't you?

When it comes to streaming and conferencing gear, Elgato is a company I've come to really appreciate. They make some of my favourite streaming gear like great keylights, and are also behind some of the best webcams around. The brand's Facecam line has impressed us since its inception back in 2021 with Elgato's first ever webcam and continues today with the Facecam MK.2 sitting atop our list of beloved cameras. Now, we are treated to the latest in that lineup as Elgato releases the Facecam 4k, and I'm only going off specs here, but it sounds like a really great webcam.

Right out the gate the Elgato Facecam 4k presents some impressive details to drool over. We see the same Elgato Prime lens which impressed us on the MK.2 paired with an improved 1/1.8" Sony Starvis 2 CMOS sensor. These guarantee that the image the camera is able to capture with its own optics is going to be very solid, and makes for a great foundation for the rest of the performance for this webcam.

These aren't the only interesting pieces of hardware featured, as Elgato has gone surprisingly analogue here. The Facecam 4k sports manual shutter-speed and ISO settings so you can dial in the light intake and speed to help make the best of your image. If you've not got the best lighting this should be a huge help in getting the best balance without things getting too grainy.

There's also physical lens filters. You know, those bits of coloured plastic you put infront of a lens to get different effects? Some of the younger crew may not be familiar with these, as usually filters are digital here in 2025, but they definitely exist. And now they can exist on your camera, which I think more creative streamers and content creators will have a lot of fun playing with. It will fit any 49-mm filter you can find, and Elgato are currently throwing some in for those who order from the webstore.

The 4k in this Facecams name isn't just for show. These can record HDR video up to 4k at 30 fps. You can also grab uncompressed video up to 4k 30 as well, as long as you've got the bandwidth in your USB. You can also drop the resolution down to 1080 if you're after higher framerates and generally dial this in to whatever suits your setup the best.

Through Elgato's Camera Hub software you can further dial a bunch of this stuff in and play with other effects. This includes full pan and tilt controls, digital presets, and if you're packing an Nvidia RTX card you can potentially access extra features like background blur.

If Elgato's Facecam 4k turns out to be as it says on the tin, I think we could have a contender for a new top webcam on our hands. It's launching at $200 USD, which also doesn't feel unreasonable for what actually looks like a really decent upgrade from the 1080p60 Facecam which still retails for $140. $60 for better sensors, upgraded lens, 4k capabilities, and all those sweet weird lens features sounds very worthwhile and I think this will become a staple for many streamers in the near future.

VShojo, the vtuber agency that was called out in a video on Monday by Ironmouse—who is arguably the biggest vtuber on Twitch—for failing to pay her "a significant amount of funds" and withholding a $515,000 donation to charity, is shutting down.

After hearing her story, almost every other vtuber who was part of VShojo decided to leave as well, which included popular streamers like Kson, Projekt Melody, and Henya.

With its reputation in shambles and memes about its apparent death all over X, VShojo CEO Justin "Gunrun" Ignacio posted a statement today admitting that he royally screwed up.

"VShojo has failed, and I've mismanaged the company into the situation you're all witnessing," he wrote on X. "So today I am sharing the difficult news that VShojo is shutting down, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point."

Ignacio says despite raising "around $11 million" to run VShojo, it never made enough revenue to support the cost of, well, running a talent agency. Paying creators, investing in onboarding new ones, planning concerts and events, and paying staff emptied the bank and forced him to spend the "past few months" looking for ways to keep it afloat.

While focused on securing "additional investment capital" last year, the company spent some of the $515,000 raised by Ironmouse's 30-day "subathon" stream for the Immune Deficiency Foundation—which was so popular she broke the record for the most subscriptions on Twitch. Ignacio says he "later learned" that it was intended for charity and "firmly believed" VShojo would be able to make up the money once outside funding came through, but that those efforts were unsuccessful.

The statement doesn't indicate if any of the charity funds are left and if any of it will be donated as originally intended.

"I am deeply sorry to all the talents, staff, friends, and community members who believed in our brand. You did not deserve this," he wrote.

Ignacio's statement doesn't acknowledge the reports of VShojo also failing to pay artists and vtubers who hadn't publicly announced their affiliation with the agency. X users have also found evidence that Ignacio retweeted posts about Ironmouse's fundraising stream on his personal account, which suggests he did know about the money she raised before spending it.

The statement also doesn't mention anything about paying any of the former VShojo vtubers the money they've allegedly been owed for months, and in one case an entire year.

Ironmouse, who has been open about her rare immune disorder and personal connection to the Immune Deficiency Foundation, started another fundraising campaign to make up for what was lost by VShojo. So far, it has managed to raise over $1.2 million, more than doubling the amount from before.

Withholding serious amounts of money from the most popular vtubers on Twitch isn't a great idea, it turns out. Ironmouse, who is probably the biggest vtuber on the streaming platform, published a video Monday in which she alleges that her former agency, VShojo, withheld a $515,000 donation to charity along with "a significant amount of funds" that she's owed personally.

Last year, Ironmouse broke the record for the most subscriptions on Twitch during a 30-day "subathon" stream to raise money for the Immune Deficiency Foundation. That was also the stream that raised $515,000. But because the contributions weren't made through Twitch's fundraising platform Tiltify, it was on VShojo to make the donation on her behalf.

In the new video, Ironmouse claims the agency still hasn't followed through with the donation over a year later and it's one of the reasons she has decided to leave and go independent.

"I wish I could tell you more, but right now I have been advised to wait for legal proceedings," she said. "As of right now, I am an independent vtuber. I am at a loss of what to do right now."

For most of her streaming career, Ironmouse has talked about her struggles with a rare immune disorder called common variable immunodeficiency, which left her prone to getting sick and being bedridden for most of her life. Ironmouse says the Immune Deficiency Foundation helped her immensely and it's why the charity is so important to her.

"This entire situation has broken me," she said. "I just wanted to do something good and to give back to a community that helped me."

Since posting the video, there's been an overwhelming outpouring of support for Ironmouse's decision from the vtuber community, including other VShojo members. Kson, Projekt Melody, AmaLee, Hime Hajime, Kuro, and Michi Mochievee have all announced that they will be leaving VShojo immediately. During a stream discussing the news, Kson claimed the company hasn't paid her since September 2024.

Fans have also noticed that almost all of the vtubers associated with VShojo have removed the agency's name from their X profiles, suggesting that all of them will be cutting ties with it.

In the wake of losing several of its most popular streamers while more claims of missed payments continue to come out, VShojo hasn't made any official comments on the situation.

The only bit of good news here is that Ironmouse opened a Tiltify campaign for the Immune Deficiency Foundation to try to make up for the money VShojo withheld—and it's already raised over $539,000 against a humble goal of $10,000, matching the original sum from last year's month-long subathon in roughly 24 hours.

I guess this is what happens when you piss off some of the most popular vtubers on Twitch and their loyal audiences. To me, this is a clear case of VShojo facing the consequences of those actions, also known as "finding out".

Capturing gaming content has never been easier or more affordable than it is today. You can walk into an electronics store, pick up basically any capture card off the shelf, and walk away with a functioning solution. Better yet, do some research and get a great solution for an affordable price. AverMedia is one of the bigger players in the capture card space who are always angling towards more bang for buck, and the Live Gamer Ultra S (or GC553Pro) might be some of the best bucks I’ve… banged?

Straight out of the box, the GC553Pro is a unit with cyber chic in mind. It's a relatively small and slim rectangle box, with ports and vents seemingly everywhere. So much so, you can see through to the PCB inside, which appears to take up only a small fraction of the actual unit. When purchasing you can choose between a black or white model. It's not a tonne of options but it's more than most, and the simple colourways should match most gamer's kits quite nicely.

Regardless of colour, the faceplate features angled cut outs giving glimpses to a vibrant red underlay with the AverMedia logo proudly displayed and an easy to read LED indicator. Then you have the HDMI 2.0 ports input and output on one side of the box, while the USB Type-C port sits on the other. It's a simple setup, but these three ports are what make the GC553Pro a proper piece of kit, which is really good value for $150 USD.

Having HDMI 2.0 ports for both input and passthrough means this card can take full advantage of the technology. Many capture cards will have you lose out on things like 4K at 60 fps or rob you of your HDR experience, but the GC553Pro lets you have it all for both recordings and passthrough. It also supports VRR so you don't wind up with tears in your gaming experience. It's one of the few capture cards I've used recently that I haven't noticed any difference between how a game looks plugged in through it to my TV vs directly via its own cable.

Having games still look good when you're playing them is a huge benefit here. I'm a bit sick of having to miss out on the best fidelity experience just because I want to be recording it instead. This card lets you have your cake, eat it too, and record the whole thing in brilliant 4k 60 fps. Well. If you use the software.

Plugging in the card directly to your computer via the USB-C port will get you some basic recording functions, though they'll be at lower settings by default. If you want to get the best quality recordings, or use features like the ultrawide resolutions while maintaining quality, you're going to need the Streaming Centre Software to dial all those things in. It's not the most intuitive software, and you likely want to run this through OBS as well, but it still works fairly easily. Just not as plug and play as it feels it could be.

I turned everything up to full specs and spent a few hours running around the world of Avowed on my Xbox Series X. It's easy for me to lose track of time when playing a meaty RPG, so I had the GC553Pro running non stop for around six hours, happily recording while I hunted down the dreamscurge. The next day I did the same while Webslinging through New York on my PS5 and, once again, the card was happy to provide me passthrough and video recordings for the entire time. My PC got tired of it all long before the capture card did.

But that is definitely a factor with this capture card, you're going to need something good enough to run it. Not only do you need to have USB ports on your computer that are capable of receiving the high quality signal, but you also need to be able to store and read all that media.

My laptop which I often use to stream gave it a fair go and did fine on the lower quality recordings, but simply didn't have the ports needed for better and would have run out of storage really quickly if it had somehow managed. This capture unit doesn't do any of the heavy lifting for you aside from allowing those signals to pass through easily, so your PC needs to be up to the task. So long as your rig can run it this is a really handy capture device, beyond just high quality game footage.

A friend of mine has been trying to use Elgato's CamLink to provide passthrough for high quality camera footage for his stream. Looking at it we thought the GC553Pro should be up to the task, so gave it a crack. It took some work within the AverMedia app, and we had to set it up as a virtual camera, but by the end of it we had high quality camera recording far better than CamLink had ever managed to provide. Then, we left it running for several hours with no complaints—something the Elgato couldn’t reliably perform.

The AverMedia GC553Pro is a keen augment for your PC, allowing you to record high quality video while still playing in high quality pass through with relatively little fuss. It doesn't mind if it's from a console, a phone, or a camera—as long as it can use HDMI, it seems this thing can do it. If you want lower quality, then it'll work with almost no fuss, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a card that can record and passthrough at this level for a better price.

Kojima Productions and Line Mileage have announced (yet another) Death Stranding movie is in the works (thanks, GIBiz). Line Mileage is an animation studio and will be creating a film set in the Death Stranding universe, which is not going to be an adaptation of the first game but an original story bouncing off some of the ideas.

Screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski is penning the film, and is best-known as the creator of the HBO Max sci-fi series Raised By Wolves,

"I love the world of Death Stranding, it's so creatively freeing, so beautifully dark and yet hopeful," said Guzikowski. "I'm so excited and honored that Hideo Kojima, whose work I've long admired, has invited me to dwell within his creation, to birth new stories into this fertile, mind-bending universe."

Line Mileage is a relatively new studio, though it boasts talent that's worked on the likes of Netflix's Castlevania, Blood of Zeus, and Tomb Raider. The movie will apparently be targeted at mature audiences and Line Mileage CCO Daniel Dominguez is positively gushing about it.

"As an avid gamer I can say, unequivocally, Death Stranding is the most cinematic, thought-provoking videogame I have ever played,” said Dominguez. "Playing it gave me the same emotional rush, visceral punch, and intellectual pleasure I had the first time I watched Blade Runner, or Ghost in the Shell. Adapting it into a form it so naturally evokes is an honor. And for Aaron Guzikowski to lend his talents, whose authorial mind and creative energy humble me… needless to say, this project is a dream come true."

Get a room. For his part Kojima has shared an article about the news but has yet to comment. In a recent interview with Japanese Vogue he did, however, mention an upcoming anime adaptation alongside his desire to explore new ways of telling stories, because "I want to pursue the expressive potential of cinema."

This animated movie has no connection to the Kojima Productions collaboration with A24, which is creating a live action Death Stranding movie with director Michael Sarnoski (the guy behind Pig). Amusingly enough, PlayStation recently attempted to recap the plot of Death Stranding in six minutes, an effort that was both charming and completely doomed.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launches in exactly one week on PlayStation 5, and hopefully we'll find out when it's coming to PC soon enough. The good news? Kojima's own staff worry it's all "a little Metal Gear-ish," which to me sounds like a very good thing indeed.

GeForce Now is available on Steam Deck… uh, didn't we know that already? Sure, the process is a bit fiddly, but at least Nvidia put together a script last year that somewhat streamlines the installation process—pretty handy considering not everyone has the cash to splash on a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU for their rig. But wait, there's now an even better way to play.

That's right, GeForce Now is finally available as a native Steam Deck app. I wrote about the initial announcement back in January, but I'm sure Jacob from almost two years ago feels very vindicated. It's been a long time coming for sure, but from today, GeForce Now members can stream over 2,000 titles from the service's cloud library straight to their Valve handheld.

This Steam Deck app replaces the previously browser-based workaround for a game streaming experience that leverages the handheld's portable form factor while also being surprisingly kind to its battery. Okay, so you still have to jump through some hoops to download it, detailed below. Still, it is a dedicated app that frees you from a Chrome browser-based experience—and I personally don't mind a little additional hand-holding through the process either.

I've tried the application on Steam Deck and it seems to work just fine, though the installation process for me pre-release will be a little different to the now available release.

Here's how to install the GeForce Now app on your Steam Deck:

• Hop into desktop mode on your Steam Deck (Steam, power button, 'switch to desktop')
• Make your way over to the GeForce Now website and look for Steam Deck on the download page
• Download the app
• Follow the on-screen installation instructions
• Job done

To be clear, GeForce Now is a streaming service for games you already own via other digital storefronts like Steam; a GeForce Now membership alone isn't going to grant you access to a suite of new games—buuut you can buy compatible titles you don't already have via this new app. Steam sales are already dangerous for my bank balance, and the GeForce Now app promises to offer no respite…

The GeForce Now Steam Deck app promises game streaming at up to 4K resolution and 60 fps, while also freeing up your handheld's hard drive space and allegedly saving close to 50% battery life compared to gaming natively. Premium GFN members—that's folks paying upwards of ten bucks a month—also enjoy HDR10 support in both handheld and docked modes (not to mention expanded mod support, as that's another story our James jumped into back in January).

Support for up to 90 fps on Steam Deck is also in the works. At present, you'll only get streaming at up to 1440p 120 fps when the Valve handheld is hooked up to a monitor, and up to 4K 60 fps if you connect your Steam Deck to a TV.

Ultimate tier GFN members—that's folks spending about 20 bucks a month—are pitched a cloud-based streaming performance comparable to a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU desktop. Our Dave is a fan. Between the price of a brand new Steam Deck (or a refurbished handheld if you can find one) plus perhaps a slightly less shiny GFN membership, and the price of an even pretty decent GPU, I think I know which one I'd prefer. Whether my notoriously dodgy router would like it, though, remains to be seen.

An "immersive" and "unforgettable" MrBeast Experience in Las Vegas that cost attendees $1,000 for a three-day ticket ended in acrimony and disappointment for fans. The event was such a failure that MrBeast himself has subsequently apologised, and promised full refunds.

This event is one of the latest commercial spinoffs for the MrBeast empire, promising fans a three-night stay over April 13 to 15 at Resorts World Las Vegas, during which they'd receive the following: an exclusive MrBeast "mystery bag" of limited-edition merch, on-site activations and immersive experiences, "exclusive menu items… themed beverages", and one participant would receive a voucher redeemable for $10,000 in cash.

Well, that was the plan. Instead, fans arrived at Resorts World and were told to wait in their hotel rooms for their mystery bags, with some staying in their rooms for days. Necessary context here is that many of MrBeast's most popular videos set isolation or endurance challenges, so it makes sense some attendees would interpret the wait for the mystery bag as a coded challenge.

"I was told to wait in my room for two days for a package to come, so I legit spent two days in my room for a package to come, and it was a box of chocolates," Theresa Metta told 8NewsNow (via the BBC).

"It should have been like mini-games, meet and greets, photo ops, special drinks, and things," added Metta. "Unfortunately, we didn't get any of that."

The mystery bags also included MrBeast t-shirts and gear in random sizes, which are available for $9 online, leading some to speculate they were being fobbed-off with unsold stock.

"Nothing happened for the first two days," said attendee MythLabb on Reddit. "The welcome gift was a box of chocolate bars and the mystery bag was four shirts in random sizes (ours were two XXS, one M, one L), a pair of XXL shorts, and a hat. Nobody at Resorts World had a clue what else was going on. It feels like the employees were only told about the mystery bag, but nobody at the restaurants knew about the 'activations' or any schedule of events (which there weren’t any)."

"We went to it and paid $999 for three nights at Resorts World," adds PiedPiperCOO. "We got a box of Feastables on day one and at 2:30pm on day two we got the merch bag with three random sized t-shirts, shorts, and a hat. That was the entire experience."

This seems to track with most peoples' experience: they got a bag of random tat, but none of the event's other promises were fulfilled. A video posted by the holiday channel Random Recess shows Resort World CEO Alex Dixon attempting to placate fans on the final day (with the aid of free donuts). The event has now been scrubbed from the hotel's website.

MrBeast has yet to issue an official statement, but has responded to several complaints on X:

"This definitely isn’t the experience we hoped they’d deliver," said MrBeast. "My team’s already on it—I’d love to personally make it up to you and anyone else by inviting everybody affected to tour my actual studio!"

The YouTuber later added that "everyone will get their money back and we called the people who purchased the experience and are flying them down to my studio [...] I’ll make sure they’re happy."

There are a handful of major game streaming apps on the market but not all that many accessible ways of streaming your entire rig to your phone. Razer has just launched an app to fix that problem, and really hopes you pair the app with its controllers, the Kishi Ultra or Kish V2 while you do so.

The new Razer PC Remote Play app is built on Moonlight, which is an open-source PC streaming software, originally using Nvidia's streaming protocol. You have previously been able to get Razer's build for the app via Github, but this week marks the launch of the app into both Apple and Android app stores.

This is all to say that, while you have previously been able to stream your full PC to your phone, tablet, etc before, it hasn't quite been as easy as this.

To set up Razer PC Remote Play, you have to download Razer Nexus and PC Remote Play apps on your phone, get Razer Cortex on your gaming rig, enable game streaming, and link the two up. You need to be on the same Wi-Fi network when you first set the two devices up but can connect wirelessly from any hotspot after the first time.

Impressively, when I booted up the app, it detected that my iPhone 15 Pro Max had a refresh rate of 120 Hz and set it to run games at that refresh rate. This is a neat bit of tech and, when run in an optimised mode, it even turns off the screen of your rig, only showing an image on your extra device. That device could be a phone on the go, a tablet in another room, or even a different laptop or PC.

I sent my colleague Nick on the journey of testing out PC Remote Play and he told me "The app's pretty clunky to use, to be honest, and with all the Razer stuff running in the background, it makes my main PC quite janky". However, he did say the set-up was smooth and streaming to his phone looks pretty great, if laggy—the above stream is with the bandwidth set to 30 Mbps. As a proof of concept, Nick told me the app has potential.

This isn't Razer's first move into cloud gaming. The Razer Edge is a (now discontinued) gaming handheld, that hooks up to a Razer Kishi controller to play games on. Effectively a glorified Android tablet with a Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 chip, you can play mobile games on it, or use it as a dedicated streaming device. You could even buy it directly from Xbox, which encouraged users to use the Xbox cloud streaming platform built into Game Pass.

I'm currently writing this in a different country than where my main rig is located so I was unable to actually link the app to my device. However, I could get some genuine use out of an app that cleanly allows streaming. Hardware overlord Dave swears by GeForce Now but I haven't quite found the right game streaming service for me. The two services are different but the end result is still playing a beefy PC game on the go.

If my internet connection can handle it, this one will be going on my to-do list when I'm back home.

Capture cards have gone from being obscure streamer specific hardware to something anyone can pick up and use. Gone are the days of spending $400 on a unit that will likely just decide it doesn't really want to capture content anymore. Instead we have readily available affordable units, barely bigger than a wallet, that not only work for capturing, sometimes they do other stuff as well! That's the case with AVerMedia's Elite Go GC313 Pro, a capture card stuffed into a charging brick.

At first glance this Elite Go looks more like a travel adapter than a capture card. This average sized power block has flip out prongs to plug into wall power on one side, and a series of ports including two USB Type-C and one Type-A on the other. It's not until you notice that HDMI port nestled in between the others that it becomes apparent this could be something more. I actually appreciate this touch of stealth, as it's almost a relief to have one less piece of tech I might have to explain to travel authorities.

The ports allow for a full capture setup complete with HDMI passthrough, though it's only 1.4. The top USB Type-C port sits just below some charm holes (yes!!! bring these back to everything) and is used for whichever device you want to capture. Underneath this you can find a USB Type-A port for accessories, followed by the HDMI for passthrough, and then finally a second Type-C port that outputs to your PC for capturing. It's an easy clean setup, and the arrangement allows for elbow cables to fit easily.

When plugged into power it acts as a charger, outputting up to 100 W from the Type-C ports and 5 W from the Type A. It will charge devices while capturing, and thanks to the high power output can easily handle keeping the battery topped up as long as you're playing. I plugged my launch day Switch—which is known for giving me battery problems—in when it was low, and began recording some The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. When I was done my Switch had actually charged.

I did the same with my iPad Pro, once again using the included sturdy braided USB Type C to C, to capture and stream some drawing and ended up with an iPad on full charge. Not having to worry about battery life on these devices was a great relief and makes it easier just to grab something on a whim and stream, rather than have to wait until it's got enough charge to survive being plugged into a normal card. Plus it has overload protection which I doubt whatever power adapter I've fished out of the box this time can also attest.

The HDMI port only being 1.4 means you're limited to the protocol only outputting up to 4K at 30 fps to your bigger screen. For something like my Switch, this isn't a big issue as you're only outputting 1080p and the passthrough looks the same as what I get out of my Switch dock, only in my case it seems this capture card charges it better. It makes AVerMedia's Elite Go a great solution as a portable Switch to screen interface, even if you're not Nintending to capture your antics.

On the capture side I'm once again relieved that capture cards are now plug and play. I used this on a few different computers to test and each one was able to immediately import the video source into PC capture with OBS without any extra software or even fiddling. There wasn't any noticeable lag or difference between the device, the passthrough image, or the capture during my tests either. The Elite Go won't have the super high quality capture of cards made for high res video capture but for a travelling streaming device it's more than capable.

The USB Type-A port on the block even works for your peripherals, which is incredibly handy. My laptop only has one USB port on it and that's being used to receive the capture information, so getting it back via the box made it that little bit easier to use an extra device. And when I'm not using it to capture it's a handy charging block that means I can leave one more thing at home. I've spent around the $130 USD price tag on travel bricks that haven't been this good at delivering power, let alone doing the capture stuff too.

I took it with me for a recent weekend getaway to the beach and was able to use it for all my charging needs. Unfortunately, I'm Australian and have to also use a travel adapter for the power pins, as it only comes with US pins and EU and UK adapters, but even with this I felt like it cut down on my usual travel plethora of electronic baggage.

Coming from a time when capture cards could barely do the single thing they were designed to, seeing one that does it with ease, plus charges all my devices, is delightful. It takes out some of the key stressors to streaming, especially while travelling. Between carrying a lot of kit, having your devices run out of battery on you, and not having enough ports on a laptop this little guy has you covered. And you're more likely to actually have it with you when you need it thanks to the versatility. At $130/£130 you can grab a cheaper card that will capture content just as well, but it won't be as useful a travel companion. For streamers on the go or just for anyone looking to have a nifty new travel brick the Elite Go is a really nifty unit.

Streaming is more popular than it's ever been, and that means manufacturers are clamouring to release streaming-suitable microphones into a market that's starting to feel rather crowded. From cheap and cheerful desktop condenser mics to close-up dynamic wonders, if you'd like to capture your gaming-induced yelps and squeals for the world to hear (or perhaps some sombre narration), you're somewhat spoilt for choice.

The Nacon Rig M2 Streamstar is the latest microphone addition vying for your hard-earned cash. It's presented as a desktop microphone complete with screw-on stand, but as a streaming mic you can attach it to a boom arm to get up close and personal. It's also got a magnetic rear backplate with R-I-G written on it in bold white letters, which Nacon says you can swap out with a custom plate if you get one printed with your particular logo.

Self-promotion is important in the streaming game, after all. Anyway, it's $130, and that puts it in the upper mid-range of the streaming microphone market—and only $19 cheaper than our best microphone for gaming pick, the Shure MV6. That's a seriously impressive mic, so the Nacon unit has its work cut out for it right from the start.

The Streamstar is a fairly innocuous-looking device, resembling an all-black deck of playing cards tilted up on its side when attached to the included stand. On paper it's also got some impressive specs, including 24-bit audio capture with a 192 Hz sampling rate. On the front are two dials, one for gain adjustment and one for monitor volume. Underneath is a 3.5 mm aux output for headphone monitoring, and a USB Type-C connection, with an included USB Type-A to Type-C cable.

You might think you'd need to install some included software before you get going with the Streamstar, but there isn't any. Nope, the quick start guide tells you to assemble the stand, plug the cable in, and then set the sample rate in the Windows audio settings. I appreciate simplicity, but there's something about the whole experience here that feels barebones right from the start.

That's not helped by the front-mounted controls. This is going to sound like a silly thing to point out, but while the microphone and stand feel of… passable quality, the front dials wobble like they're not quite connected properly. It's been a while since a dial made me grimace, but here we are.

Whether that matters to you largely depends on how often you'll use them, but as you'll see later on, the gain dial becomes rather important. Said gain dial is the lower of the two, and is ringed in white light when the microphone is live, and red when it's clicked in to mute. The click itself feels fairly sturdy, so plus points there.

A stand-out feature of the Streamstar is Bluetooth monitoring. In essence, you can pair a set of earbuds to the mic itself for live audio monitoring, free from the burden of cables, by long-pressing the top dial.

Or at least, that's how it's supposed to work. I tried connecting a pair of Sennheiser Bluetooth earbuds to the mic, but the instructions are very basic and it required a fair bit of fiddling around, pairing and unpairing, before I got a usable result.

Some software interjection would really help here. A simple app that allows you to see which devices are paired to the mic—and which inputs and outputs are being used at any one time—would make things a lot more straightforward, rather than relying on the arcane Windows audio settings page. Still, after much cursing, a reliable input and output was achieved.

Time to see whether those specs translate to great audio. I first recorded my voice with the Streamstar in a desktop position at a mere six inches away with a reasonable amount of gain, and immediately thought I'd screwed up a recording setting, as the Audacity waveform barely moved in response. Cranking the gain to maximum, however, resulted in this:

The vocal tone itself is perfectly decent, but the clip above is me speaking forcefully, at maximum gain, with the mic placed in front of my keyboard. A desktop mic would generally sit further back than this, but move it to a less obtrusive position and your voice disappears into the distance even with the gain cranked to high heaven. Back it down, and the Streamstar struggles to capture your voice at a decent volume over the background noise.

Speaking of which, what you'll also notice is a fair amount of hiss even though I recorded these clips in a dead quiet room. The Streamstar's 16 mm electret condenser has a tendency to highlight every sound it can pick up except your voice when used with the included stand, meaning that noise cancellation is near essential. Except it doesn't come with any, which strikes me as something of a fatal flaw.

Undeterred, I recorded a clip with the mic attached to a boom arm directly in front of me, but with my mouth slightly off to the side, (an old-school microphone technique that tends to work wonders), and managed a better result—at least in terms of gain:

While I'm certainly used to the idea of microphones sounding better the closer they are to your face, this is the first condenser mic I've used where I'd consider a close-mic position pretty much essential. Get the Streamstar up close, and it manages to capture a warm tone that would be perfectly usable for streaming.

However, it's still a little noisy. More than that, in a close position the Streamstar is quite plosive-prone, meaning "puh" and "buh" tones have a tendency to get blown out, even when speaking off to the side. You can hear this in the clip above, particularly as I say the "p" in "lockpick". Many streamers lack proper microphone technique and speak directly into the front of the mic at close range, and that's a recipe for audio disaster with this particular unit, given the lack of software help.

What this means in practice is you're likely going to be adjusting the gain on a regular basis to minimise unwanted audio nasties—which means wrestling with volume and background hiss/plosive issues until you force them into an uneasy standoff using a wobbly dial. That's the sort of compromise you'd normally have to make with a cheap microphone, but at $130, cheap this ain't.

I really can't get on with the Streamstar, much as I have tried. It looks like a streamer-worthy microphone on paper, and the Bluetooth monitoring feature is a lovely idea, but in practice, it's got far too many flaws. It's too quiet to use in a standard desktop position without excessive background noise, it's plosive-prone in a close-up position, and crucially, it's missing any software help to rectify either issue.

Plus, the materials are so-so, the dials feel wobbly, and there's nothing about it that suggests to me that it's a $100+ product. When you can pick up a Razer Seiren Mini for a mere $50 (or even less, as it regularly goes on sale) and it performs as well as it does for such a minimal sum, I really don't see why you'd pay more than double for the Streamstar.

The Razer also lacks noise cancellation, but it has no problem picking up vocals at a reasonable volume from a traditional desktop position without pegging the gain to the maximum.

Or you could spend $19 more than the Streamstar and opt for the Shure MV6. It's much more obtrusive, but it's an excellent mic that picks up well both close up and at a distance. It also comes with powerful noise cancelling software, meaning you can remove background noise with a single slider, and it's built like the proverbial tank to boot.

There are many USB microphones on the market for streamers to choose from, and while the Streamstar looks great on paper, in practice, it fails to deliver the smooth audio experience achieved by many of its rivals. It's a fiddly, fussy mic with questionable materials, and for $130, I really do expect more than this. A bit of a swing and a miss, I'm afraid.

The HyperX Quadcast S is one of the best microphones for gaming. Mics designed especially for gamers have flourished over the last decade: it used to be that you'd just use a Shure like everyone else, but gamers must have their own fancy things, and now the likes or Razer, SteelSeries and HyperX are releasing purpose-built affairs.

As far as fancy gamer-centric things go, HyperX's Quadcast S is exemplary. It's the best looking gaming mic you can get, with really clever RGB implementation. You see these things pop up a fair bit in Twitch streams, but they're just as suitable for people who like their gaming space to look really nice.

In addition to the RGB, which is fully customisable using HyperX's Ngenuity software, the mic has all the practical features you could want in this price range, including tap-to-mute, a built-in shockmount, and—don't forget!—brilliant sound. It's usually a pricey affair at AU$299, but Amazon is currently offering a very tempting 33% discount, bringing the price down by a full AU$100 to AU$199.

The Quadcast S has been cheaper on Amazon before: it went for as little as AU$156.75 last June, but that was an extremely rare discount. The current AU$199 is the best price we've seen on this model since June 2024.

The discount is part of Amazon's Big Smile sale, which runs this week. Another highlight, for me at least, is the Corsair K70 RGB Pro, which is going for AU$160.65 down from AU$249. I'm using it to type this very story, and can confirm that it's well worth that discounted price.

Amazon's Fallout TV show turned out great, and the first season was such a hit that a second was commissioned almost immediately. As is the way with every multi-season series these days, we also got a big tease at the first season's conclusion: we're going to New Vegas baby!

It didn't take long for the first 'leaks' to appear, including a set photo revealing the return of everyone's favourite New Vegas attraction / sniper nest, Dinky the T-Rex. I put leaks in inverted commas because these days it all just feels like part of the marketing as much as anything, and some new TikToks from one Onzo1313 certainly have that feeling too. (Given that they're also posting videos of Fallout swag, it definitely seems like someone official gave the nod).

The new videos show what looks like New Vegas before the nukes hit, with the Lucky 38 casino and everything lit-up and pristine, some drive-bys of the set, and certain specific elements from the game. This video appears to show the set for the Ultra Luxe, the front of which can also be seen in this clip showcasing other storefronts in what looks like post-apocalypse style.

Most exciting for fans is the presence of a sign for the Lucky 38 casino, which is of course the base of Mr. House, who in the game runs New Vegas from his stasis chamber. Mr. House made a brief appearance in episode 8 of the first season, played by Rafi Silver, so a greater presence in season 2 seems a cert.

PCG's Jody McGregor reckoned that the show's first season was "the best Fallout since New Vegas" itself, which I'd probably agree with, and my hopes are high for a season 2 that starts bringing in some of that game's best elements. For their part one of the show's stars, Ella Purnell, reckons “no-one's going to be able to predict what happens. There's some big twists this time around.”

As someone who writes for a living, having someone jumping into my Google Docs to make sure I haven't written something too abhorrent. It's admittedly one of my least favourite parts of the process—what do you mean someone else has to read and perceive the things I've written, what the hell—and the thought of even being present in the document while someone is scrutinising my work makes me want to vomit.

Which is why I don't know whether to applaud or be terrified of YouTuber Beluga, who invited 833,013 people to edit a document titled: "A Hermeneutic Exploration of KSI's 'Thick of It' and its Multilayered Significance'. Which, yeah sure, okay.

The video Beluga posted to YouTube shows him drafting a message that mentions every single person in his server—today I learned that Discord warns you before you try to ping nearly one million people—which read "my school project is due in 10 mins. pls help!!!!!"

Unsurprisingly, it takes absolutely no time at all before over 100 people have already started to flood into the document. It seems like a few people start by trying to help out with some genuine edits—or at the very least make very light changes—before one bozo comes along and simply. Deletes the entire document.

It doesn't stay blank for long though, as it begins to rapidly move through a chaotic series of pasted messages, memes, and nonsensical ramblings. I was able to find people spamming keys to craft Shakespearean scripture such as "HERNOggyjbbjutynubkrnuknukeunf". You know, the good stuff.

I do also, unsurprisingly, spot a slur—which Beluga has dutifully blurred out—and chantings of "HELLO BELUGA". It's after this where things start to get pretty… weird. I get flashbanged by a glimpse of a pregnant emoji, an ASCII art toucan, a horrifyingly realistic minion, before I get flashbanged again by someone writing the word BALLS in a huge font.

The doc ends up growing and growing to over 600 whole-ass pages, before Google Docs craps out altogether and throws up a nice error message for Beluga. Overall though, the one-minute video is, for the most part, a surprisingly pleasant mix of wholesome and cursed. At one point, one Google Doc-er calls it the "least chaotic Beluga video"... before being consumed by "SIGMA SKIBIDI DANCE" pasted over and over again.

Glancing over Beluga's other videos though, it defo seems like it might rank a lot lower on the chaos scale than I thought after watching it. The YouTuber's recently uploaded videos like "Giving 841,709 people my Netflix password," "Inviting 851,309 people to a Zoom meeting" and "Wishing 793,159 people a good night". An agent of chaos, both big and small. This is what happens when people remember they have free will.

It's 2025 and somehow we've still yet to see a Twitch stream happening from space—until next week, that is. NASA has announced it'll be doing a livestream a whole 250 miles from Earth aboard the International Space Station, on Wednesday 12 February.

The stream will be happening on the official NASA Twitch and is set to feature astronauts like Don Pettit and Matt Dominick—my astronaut knowledge is appalling but they both have Wikipedia entries so I can only assume they're important based off that metric alone—with Twitch chat having the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions about what it's actually like being up in space.

Now the cynical part of me can't help but automatically go to the absolute worst-case scenario on how that Twitch chat is actually going to look. I can only assume it's going to go somewhat feral, and I do wonder if seasoned astronauts are ready to deal with an undiluted internet chatroom happening in real-time. I'm sure they'll have plenty to talk about regardless though, with NASA promising all sorts of insight into day-to-day life aboard the space station while spending a hefty amount of time plugging their various programmes and research.

NASA communications director Brittany Brown called it "the first of many" Twitch streams the government agency intends to do from the cosmos and you know what? Hell yeah. I'm all for cool stuff like this happening on social and streaming platforms, and I'm sure NASA has already calculated the positive exposure it'll have on their end.

It does perhaps spell bad news for the notorious streamer IShowSpeed, who just a couple of months ago had announced his grand ambitions to go live from space. "I want to stream in space one day," he told Forbes in December last year. "Once I talk to Elon Musk, it's happening."

I mean, I guess that's still a possibility, but I can't help but wonder if he'll be a bit miffed that he's not the first one to do it. I'd like to proclaim from my high horse that I wouldn't be, but I probably would. Especially if I'd just so happened to very recently proclaim my desires to stream from space, only to have Big Space itself do it first.

Regardless, it's an exciting concept. It might be far more boring in practice than I'm building it up in my head to be. But hey, it's a first, and that's pretty neat. The event is set to kick off at 8:45am PT / 11:45am ET / 4:45pm GMT on February 12.