Technologies

Hogwarts Legacy: The Best PS5 and Xbox Graphics Options

The new Harry Potter game can have up to five separate graphics preset options.

While PC games often have endless menus and submenus of graphics settings to tinker with, console games have historically run the same way for everyone on the same hardware. More recently, as consoles have diverged into multiple versions, such as the PS4/PS4 Pro or the Xbox Series X/Series S, you might get a choice between Quality and Performance modes (typically emphasizing either resolution or frames-per-second), but that’s about it.

In Hogwarts Legacy, however, the Xbox and PS5 versions of the game have up to five available graphics settings. That’s more than the usual Quality/Performance split, and the details of each can be a bit opaque. That’s especially true considering one of the big selling points of console gaming is that you don’t have to worry about settings or compatibility issues.

Which one to pick depends on a couple of things – your preference for sparkly eye candy over smooth motion, and whether or not you have a TV that supports VRR (variable refresh rate) and HDR.

As a quick rundown, Hogwarts Legacy’s five graphics settings are:

Fidelity mode
Fidelity mode with raytracing
Performance mode
Balanced mode
HFR (high frame rate) mode

The question comes down to: Do you want the game to look better or run smoother? Quality settings, called Fidelity in this case, in console games generally increase the resolution and add graphics detail and complexity, but often lock the number of frames per second down to 30. Performance settings can drop the resolution and remove or downgrade graphics features, but offer higher frame rates, ideally at least 60fps — but not always. Newer TVs with higher refresh rates (or variable refresh rates) can run even faster frame rates.

In testing Hogwarts Legacy, it’s not surprising that I ended up on the Balanced setting. It feels like a shame to skip the high-end graphics the PS5 (and Xbox Series X) are capable of. But at the same time, playing at 30fps feels choppy and unsatisfying. Hence, the in-the-middle option.

I’ve also been spoiled by testing the game on a series of high-end gaming PCs. On the new Razer Blade 18, which has an Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU, I was able to run the game at its highest graphics settings with QHD resolution and get frame rates above 100fps in most cases.

Even an slightly older gaming laptop with an Nvidia RTX 3070 was able to run at a mostly consistent 60fps at high graphics settings and FHD resolution. Both of these cases, when connected to a 65-inch LG OLED TV, were far superior visually to any of the PS5 options and didn’t require me to choose graphics quality over frame rate.

What do all these performance mode settings actually do?

As Hogwarts Legacy is mostly exploration and conversation with some fighting, you can get away with the Fidelity mode and not feel like you’re losing out on gameplay. Fast-paced action or online competitive games generally require those higher frame rates for effective play.

Adding the ray tracing option tweaked the visuals slightly on the PS5, most noticeably adding more realistic reflections. But it also seemed to further degrade performance. It’s worth checking out, but you might not stick with it.

Besides the Balanced setting, the Performance setting is also somewhere in the middle. It drops some detail from Balanced, but feels like it hits 60fps more consistently without the occasional slowdown in the Balanced mode.

The extreme option on the other end is HFR Performance, which maximizes the frame rate but makes the game look worse. Again, a casual adventure/exploration game like this doesn’t need anything over ~60fps, and only some TVs even support this.

What performance setting should I choose for Hogwarts Legacy?

For my money, if playing on a PS5, I’d choose the Balanced mode, but only after sampling the other available options as well. My second choice would be Fidelity mode, and in fact, I might switch back and forth between the two depending on my mood.

But the overall best experience is going to be on a gaming PC, and our breakdown of the required specs for that is here.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #707

Hints and answers for Connections for May 18, #707.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle is a mix of difficult and easy. The purple category does what most purple categories do, and makes you really break down how you think about the words. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: School days.

Green group hint: About there!

Blue group hint: Sure, let’s go.

Purple group hint: The Scarlett Letter.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Tasks for a student.

Green group: Encouraging responses in a guessing game.

Blue group: Up for anything.

Purple group: What «A» might mean.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is tasks for a student. The four answers are assignment, drill, exercise and lesson.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is encouraging responses in a guessing game. The four answers are almost, close, not quite and warm.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is up for anything. The four answers are easy, flexible, game and open.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is what «A» might mean. The four answers are area, athletic, excellent and one.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #441

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 441 for May 18.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands will probably be easier if you have some basic knowledge about a certain type of vessel. You don’t really need to have ever been on one, since the answers show up in books and movies all the time. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Riding the wind.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: famed song by Christopher Cross.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DULL, TILE, TILER, SEER, GALE, GALES, HAIL, SAIL, LEEK, GLUE, HALL, TALL, HEAT

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

HELM, HULL, KEEL, MAST, STERN, RIGGING, RUDDER, TILLER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SAILBOAT. To find it, start with the S that’s four letters down on the farthest row to the left, then wind across, up and down.

Technologies

Google I/O 2025: How to Watch and What to Expect

With Android 16 out of the way, Google I/O will certainly be all about AI.

Google I/O 2025 takes place on May 20 and 21 with Google’s big keynote happening on day 1. We expect Big G to talk about its myriad innovations across its ever-expanding portfolio of products — almost certainly with a huge focus on AI every step of the way. If we collectively cross our fingers, promise to be good and eat all our vegetables then we may even be treated to a sneak peek at upcoming hardware.

Read more: Android 16: Everything Google Announced at the Android Show

Google also hosted a totally separate event that focused solely on Android. The Android Show: I/O Edition saw the wrappers come off Android 16, with insights into the new Material 3 Expressive interface, updates to security and a focus on Gemini and how it’ll work on a variety of other devices.

By breaking out Android news into its own virtual event, Google frees itself to spend more time during the I/O keynote to talk about Gemini, Deep Mind, Android XR and Project Astra. It’s going to be a jam-packed event, so here’s how you can watch I/O 2025 as it happens and what you can look forward to.

Google I/O: Where to watch

Google I/O proper kicks off with a keynote taking place on May 20, 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. BST). It’ll almost certainly be available to stream online on Google’s own YouTube channel, although a holding video is yet to be available. There’s no live link on the I/O website yet, either, though you can use the handy links to add the event to your calendar of choice. Expect links to a livestream to be available closer to the day.

What to expect from Google I/O 2025

Little chat about Android 16: As Google gave Android 16 its own outing already, it’s likely that it won’t be mentioned all that much during I/O. In fact at last year’s event, Android was barely mentioned, while uses of the term «AI» went well over a hundred.

Android XR: Google didn’t talk much about Android XR during the Android show, focusing instead on the purely phone-based updates to the platform. We expected to hear more about the company’s latest foray into mixed-reality headsets in partnership with Samsung and its Project Moohan headset, so it’s possible that this is being saved for I/O proper.

Gemini: With Android being spun out into its own separate event, Google is evidently clearing the way for I/O to focus on everything else the company does. AI will continue to dominate the conversation at I/O, just as it did last year (though hopefully Google can make it more understandable) with updates to many of its AI platforms expected to be announced.

Gemini is expected to receive a variety of update announcements, including more information on its latest 2.5 Pro update which boasts various improvements to its reasoning abilities, and in particular to its helpfulness for coding applications. Expect lots of mentions of Google’s other AI-based products, too, including DeepMind, LearnLM and Project Astra. Let’s just hope Google has figured out how to make this information make any kind of sense.

Beyond AI, Google may talk about updates to its other products including GMail, Chrome and the Play Store, although whether these updates are big enough to be discussed during the keynote rather than as part of the developer-focused sessions following I/O’s opening remains to be seen.