Technologies

Load Faster and Crash Less with Marvel Rival’s New Experimental Feature

The new performance setting lets you spend less time compiling shaders and more time bringing the beatdown on some baddies in Marvel’s hero shooter.

The Hellfire Gala isn’t the only reason for Marvel Rivals PC players to party in Season 2. The hit hero shooter just got a new experimental performance setting that aims to speed up load times and prevent crashes.

PC players have been plagued with issues since the release of Marvel Rivals. Even with adequate memory and beefy GPUs, the game’s performance has been shaky for many players. The new mode aims to solve these issues, especially for any players who have 16GB of RAM or less installed in their rig.

Toggling Switch Shader Compilation Mode will ensure that the game only goes through the shader compilation on the first startup after a new patch or graphics driver update, rather than every time you launch the game.

The developers also have optimized the game’s memory usage, cutting down on severe frames per second drops, visual stutters and crashes caused by memory shortages.

Here’s how you can turn on the new Switch Shader Compilation Mode and optimize your Marvel Rivals performance.

How do I turn on Switch Shader Compilation Mode for Marvel Rivals?

You don’t actually turn on the new performance setting from the in-game settings menu. Because Switch Shader Compilation Mode affects load times, you need to toggle this option within the Marvel Rivals launcher before you start the game.

The Switch Shader Compilation Mode setting appears in a long rectangular box directly to the left of the «Launch» button. To turn on the mode, simply check the box on the left side of the rectangle and run the game.

Known bugs that can occur with the Switch Shader Compilation Mode

This new performance feature was released in an experimental state, which means you might run into some bugs. None of these are game-breaking, nor are they permanent, so you don’t have to worry about running Marvel Rivals with this option toggled.

When Switch Shader Compilation Mode is turned on, some textures may render abnormally at the beginning of a match but will return to their normal state after several frames.

As these textures properly load, you may also experience momentary stutters before the game once again settles into a continuous picture. Both of these bugs are supposed to last for only a few frames at the start of each match, well before players step outside of the spawn doors.

A heads-up for those using older silicon: On systems with lower end CPUs (those with six or fewer threads), enabling Switch Shader Compilation Mode alongside AMD FSR3 Frame Generation could potentially create stutters that will last throughout a match.

This doesn’t mean players with less powerful CPUs can’t use Switch Shader Compilation Mode but it does mean that they should disable AMD FSR3 Frame Generation while they do so. It’s unclear whether there will be a fix for this bug — but development will continue on this experimental performance feature nonetheless.

Technologies

Starlink Plans to Send 42K Satellites Into Space. That Could Be Bad News for the Ozone

Technologies

Scary Survey Results: Teen Drivers Are Often Looking at Their Phones

New troubling research found that entertainment is the most common reason teens use their phones behind the wheel, followed by texting and navigation.

A new study reveals that teen drivers in the US are spending more than one-fifth of their driving time distracted by their phones, with many glances lasting long enough to significantly raise the risk of a crash. Published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention and released on Thursday, the research found that, on average, teens reported looking at their phones during 21.1% of every driving trip. More than a quarter of those distractions lasted two seconds or longer, which is an amount of time widely recognized as dangerous at highway speeds.

Most distractions tied to entertainment, not emergencies

The top reason teens said they reached for their phones behind the wheel was for entertainment, cited by 65% of respondents. Texting (40%) and navigation (30%) were also common. Researchers emphasized that these distractions weren’t typically urgent, but rather habitual or social.

Teens know the risks

The study includes survey responses from 1,126 teen drivers across all four US regions, along with in-depth interviews with a smaller group of high schoolers. Most participants recognized that distracted driving is unsafe and believed their parents and peers disapproved of the behavior.

But many teens also assumed that their friends were doing it anyway, pointing to a disconnect between personal values and perceived social norms.

Teens think they can resist distractions

Interestingly, most teens expressed confidence in their ability to resist distractions. That belief, researchers suggest, could make it harder to change behavior unless future safety campaigns specifically target these attitudes.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said interventions should aim to shift social norms while also emphasizing practical steps, such as enabling «Do Not Disturb» mode and physically separating drivers from their devices.

«Distracted driving is a serious public health threat and particularly concerning among young drivers,» Robbins said. «Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death, it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident.»

What this means for parents and educators

The researchers say their findings can help guide educators and parents in developing more persuasive messaging about the dangers of distracted driving. One of the recommendations is that adults need to counter teens’ beliefs that phone use while driving is productive or harmless.

While the study’s qualitative component was limited by a small and non-urban sample, the authors believe the 38-question survey they developed can be used more broadly to assess beliefs, behaviors and the effectiveness of future safety efforts.

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con Issues? It Might Just Be Your HDMI Cable

Make sure to use the Switch 2 cable included with the new gaming console.

As the Switch 2 continues to sell in the millions for Nintendo, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’d be some issues with the console. It appears, however, that one problem Switch 2 owners are facing is actually just a matter of using the wrong cable.

Reddit users have posted about their Joy-Cons disconnecting when they’re playing on their Switch 2 while it’s docked, an issue spotted earlier by IGN. It does appear that, luckily, the issue can be resolved by using the included HDMI cable for the Switch 2 rather than an older, slower one — including the cable that came with the original Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo laid out the solution on its support page for when the Joy-Con 2 starts disconnecting from the console:

Confirm that you’re using an «Ultra High Speed» HDMI cable to connect the dock to the TV. If it’s not Ultra High Speed, your console won’t perform as expected when docked.
If you’re using a different cable than the one that came with the console, it should have printed on the cable that it’s «Ultra High Speed.»
The HDMI cable that came with the Nintendo Switch is not «Ultra High Speed» and should not be used with the Nintendo Switch 2 dock.

Nintendo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the source of this issue.

Since the Switch 2 launch, many gamers have come to realize that Nintendo’s new console is very picky about what cables are connected to it. This goes for the HDMI cable as well as the power cable.

While the new and old Switch share the same name, they don’t share the same components. The Switch 2 is a huge upgrade in graphics power over the 2017 console, which means it needs the appropriate power supply. Not providing the Switch 2 with sufficient power could likely cause some issues, especially if the system has to do a lot of work to run a game.