So they did it: it’s Forza Horizon in Japan. In just about every way they’ve nailed it. I have 20 something hours in Playground Games’ newest game and while it’s safe in a lot of ways, it’s also brilliant in the areas that matter most. The physics, setting, design, and loop are as good as it gets. There are a million little activity options in Forza Horizon 6 and you can effortlessly lose a couple of hours taking on aimless play.
Max
OneDrive Bug: Aspect Ratio Incorrect in Gallery
I’ve noticed this OneDrive issue when viewing uploaded game captures to OneDrive, and it’s especially apparent as I’m using a 21:9 display. Captured videos are letterboxed in a way that adds black bars to all sides of content.
The workaround is simple: instead of navigating to onedrive.live.com > Photos > Gallery, you’ll want to find the video in OneDrive’s file directory.
Chromecast with Google TV Constant Wi-Fi Disconnects
Update 9/30/25: This seems to be a well documented issue (this is the most recent reddit thread I’ve found). Restricting the Chromecast to 2.4 GHz only temporarily resolved the issue. DFS channels as well as IPv6 are also disabled on my router.
Some months ago, I purchased a Chromecast with Google TV (HD) at Target. The model was on sale and my aging Sony X800D slowed to a crawl when using the built in Google TV functionality. Considering the price point, it was perfectly acceptable and much, much faster than the TV itself. Eventually, I ran into continuous Wi-Fi disconnects.
Mapped Drive Not Available When Saving BitLocker Key During Setup
This is a simple issue I ran into when first encrypting drives with BitLocker. The problem is related to a step in the encryption process where you’ll need to save the encryption key to a secure location. It’s likely that you’ll need to save to a specific server in your environment, but the mapped drive will not be visible when the mini File Explorer dialog box pops up.
xCloud Streaming Instability With CR1000A
I’ve run into an issue with the Verizon Fios CR1000A router at two different locations and have been trying to drill down what may be the root issue. There is a lot of instability introduced after a certain time threshold (packet loss, lower bitrate, frame drops) when streaming to my phone using the Better xCloud app via Wi-Fi. Of course, I could always replace the router (and will in the future), but I still wanted to see if I could tweak anything to give better performance in the meantime. I also noticed that the Comcast XB8 gateway worked near flawlessly at one of the locations.
Xbox switching to Arm: Thinking out loud or serious forecasting?
One of the more interesting things to come out of the Xbox leaks related to the Activision merger (and there was a ton of cool stuff) was Microsoft’s consideration of moving to Arm. It’s something that’s had my head spinning, especially with news cracking that Nvidia and AMD are serious about delivering ARM based processors. As someone who subscribes to Xbox Game Pass, the closure of the Activision Blizzard deal is nothing but good news for a consumer like me in the short to medium term. In fact, I’d call it good for most consumers on those terms. But I can’t help but feel like Microsoft played this case perfectly. They are disadvantaged globally, but the leaks from this case along with Xbox’s general investments make it clear that they, at the very least, have an idea as to how things could flip in the long term.
Changes to aspect ratio with some Xbox Game Studios games when using Windows Snap
Windows Snap is an incredibly useful tool for productivity and multitasking at large. It allows those using a larger monitor or TV to emulate the functionality of having multiple displays to work with. Its greater purpose comes from the ability to reference while writing, troubleshooting, or using any other work related software, but it’s also fantastic for throwing video or messaging to the side while playing games. Lately, I’ve noticed that Windows Snap behaves differently when used with some Xbox Game Studios games.
The uneven charm of Starfield
Almost immediately, Starfield felt fragmented to me. Navigating the UI was a chore, and every move I made inevitably required awkward loading screens. Most of all, the entire experience felt obscured. Starfield is overstuffed with things to do, but most of the time it feels like you’re going against the grain. For me, the biggest appeal of Skyrim was the effortless flow of its open world. Anything I did felt in line with everything else in the game.
And that’s what was most jarring about Starfield – it lacked direction or even a sense that what I was doing was right (it can still feel this way). There are an endless amount of great quests, things to build, places to make sense of, and general paths of exploration. Bethesda clearly swung wide with this game, and at many points during my time with the game so far I was overwhelmed by possibility. But it also feels very uneven and, above all, feels like a whole that’s very systems driven. Right down to its exploration, each of these major aspects can feel very siloed off.
Halo Infinite Season 5 looks great, but where’s the love for Big Team Battle?
Halo Infinite has been in an absolute groove ever since the December 2022 update, and it looks like 343 Industries has got plenty steam in them yet with Season 5: Reckoning. Whether its Pierre Hintze taking over or the usual drawn out wind up of live service games, Season 5 has again addressed why Infinite hasn’t felt like prior games.
Running the tracert command on Halo Infinite’s servers
I’ve always been fascinated by networking, and diving into the fundamentals of IT with academics only took that need to know further. It turns out games have been a great way of going hands on thanks to the incredibly powerful Wireshark (a free and open source packet sniffing application). Poking around at multiplayer games has been an awesome way to see how things play out in real time.
Most recently, following the path between my PC and a game’s servers with the tracert command has been a great way of understanding more about real world networking practices. The tracert command uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) – a diagnostic protocol of the network layer – to map out each stop from your computer to an endpoint designated by you (IP address or domain name).