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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, June 10

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 10.

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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword isn’t too tough. And 5-Down celebrates a certain summer blockbuster movie that’s about to turn 50. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Displays at a trailhead
Answer: MAPS

5A clue: Pulitzer-winning 2024 novel that reimagined «Adventures of Huckleberry Finn» from the perspective of Jim
Answer: JAMES

6A clue: Invader in a sci-fi movie
Answer: ALIEN

7A clue: Thin strands
Answer: WISPS

8A clue: ‘Tude
Answer: SASS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: One of Michelle Obama’s daughters
Answer: MALIA

2D clue: A little out of whack
Answer: AMISS

3D clue: Marshmallow treats in Easter baskets
Answer: PEEPS

4D clue: I.R.S. IDs
Answer: SSNS

5D clue: 1975 film with a 25-foot animatronic shark
Answer: JAWS

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Samsung Says Its Next Galaxy Z Foldables Will Be Its ‘Thinnest, Lightest’

The company shares yet another teaser for its upcoming devices.

Another week, another cryptic teaser for Samsung’s upcoming foldables.

On Monday, the company said in a blog post that its «newest Galaxy Z series is the thinnest, lightest and most advanced foldable yet.» This comes after Samsung last week teased a foldable packing «an Ultra-experience,» including a «powerful camera» and «AI-powered tools.»

Now, it appears Samsung is borrowing from the design of another one of its phones, the slim and lightweight Galaxy S25 Edge. It’s also following in the footsteps of another skinny foldable, the Oppo Find N5, which is dubbed «the world’s thinnest book-style foldable when closed.» Whether Oppo will hold onto that title after Samsung’s reveal remains to be seen.

In its post, Samsung notes that, «it’s only natural that users desire a foldable device that is as easy to carry as it is to use. To that end, Samsung engineers and designers are refining each generation of the Galaxy Z series to be thinner, lighter and more durable than the last.»

Personally, I’m all for a thinner and lighter foldable; the Galaxy S25 Edge and Oppo Find N5 really opened my eyes to how much more enjoyable using a slim and lightweight device can be. I can see the Galaxy Z Fold especially benefitting from this redesign, since the Z Fold 6 is still pretty bulky. But even a slim Galaxy Z Flip could help revive the nostalgia of a skinny flip phone, perhaps even better than the modern-day Motorola Razr.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Z foldables are slated to arrive in the summer, and it appears the company will keep dropping hints about what’s in store leading up to the full reveal.

Technologies

Microsoft Just Dropped a Free AI Video Tool, and It’s Wildly Easy to Use

Bing Video Creator is live on mobile now, but desktop and Copilot Search support is coming soon.

Microsoft has a new, free tool that lets you create AI-generated videos: the Bing Video Creator.

If you’ve ever wanted to turn a quick idea into a video without touching editing software, Microsoft’s new AI tool might be your next favorite trick. The company just rolled out Bing Video Creator, a free feature that lets you generate short videos from nothing but a text prompt. No fancy skills or timeline scrubbing required. Just type in your idea and let the AI do the rest.

When I gave it a spin, it took less than a minute to churn out a five-second clip of the Bing logo bobbing in a pool alongside a flamingo and donut floatie. It’s weird, fun, and kind of impressive, especially for a free tool that lives right inside your browser. If you’re curious about what this AI video generator can do (or just want to make a goofy summer-themed clip), here’s how it works and what to expect.

The feature is only available on the Bing Search mobile app right now but it will be coming to Windows desktops and Copilot Search, according to the company, and is powered by OpenAI’s Sora video technology. Bing Video Creator joins other major AI-driven video creation tools, including Sora from ChatGPT, Adobe Firefly, Google Veo, Runway and Meta Movie Gen.

You can check out what Google’s latest Veo 3 feature can do for those willing to pay for Gemini Ultra. The technology is moving quickly, with more options now available, some free and others for a fee or purchasing them in AI service subscriptions.

How to use Bing Video Creator

Finding or using the Bing Video Creator isn’t instantly intuitive, especially if you’re not already using the Bing Search app. In the Bing Search app, I accessed the feature by clicking on the box on the bottom right of the home screen.

That brings up lots of apps within the app. Look for Video Creator on the bottom left. There, you can create a still image or video by typing in a text prompt. Using the Fast option, which is the default, should generate the short video in moments.

You can also type «Create a video of…» directly in the app’s main search bar if you don’t want to hunt for the feature. You can download and share the video.

When I tried it out, I found the video was not very high quality and was not easy to download directly from the app. Sharing a link to the video creation and viewing it outside the app offers an option to download the full video.

Microsoft says it will keep your video creations available for 90 days.

Choice of AI video generators

Microsoft’s entry into AI video making is giving people another free option that seems geared toward casual users.

Many who work in AI businesses, such as Matt Psencik, director of security and product design research at Tanium, are following the rollout of these products, led by Sora last year. Psencik says one of them has been most impressive.

«Google’s launch of Veo 3 for Gemini is a standout,» he tells me, «in object permanence, realistic physics and overall visual fidelity. These developments are beginning to erase the line between ‘clearly AI-generated’ and ‘convincingly real.’ «

The risks, Psencik says, is that realistic video generation could be exploited with deepfakes or used to attempt to hijack someone else’s identity. Most of the AI video generators have guardrails or filters on what kind of content users can request to generate, whether it’s to avoid copyright issues or to prevent hate speech and propaganda.

But, Psencik tells me, that’s not stopping AI bots from posting fake videos online that many people can’t tell apart from reality.

«As AI-generated video becomes nearly indistinguishable from reality, it’s only a matter of time before these tools are regularly weaponized to impersonate real people at scale,» he says.