It’s time to lock in those brackets. The 2026 NCAA basketball tournaments, affectionately known as March Madness, begin this week. In fact, some of the action on the men’s side starts tonight. Both the men’s and women’s tournaments are available to stream through various apps and services, but navigating the web of broadcasters and TV channels can be confusing. We’ve broken down when all the games are happening, where to watch and the best options for saving some cash doing so. 

What does March Madness start?

The men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament begins on Tuesday, March 17 with two of the First Four matchups. These are the four games that are used to determine the final four teams in the main 64-team bracket. To some, they’re known as the “play-in games” although they’ve officially been part of the men’s tournament since 2011. The first game on March 17 begins at 6:40PM ET with another to follow at 9:15PM ET. The same schedule is expected for the second slate of games on Wednesday, March 19.

On the women’s side, everything is offset by a day. The first two of the First Four games take place on Wednesday, March 18 at 7PM ET and 9PM ET. The second pair of matchups follows on Thursday, March 19 in the same two time slots.

The 64-team bracket kicks off in earnest for the men at 12:15PM ET on Thursday, March 19. For the women, the main action begins at 11:30AM ET on Friday, March 20. Here’s the full schedule for each tournament:

2026 Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament

• First Four: March 17-18

• First round: March 19-20

• Second round: March 21-22

• Sweet 16: March 26-27

• Elite Eight: March 28-29

• Final Four: April 4

• Championship game: April 6

2026 Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament

• First Four: March 18-19

• First round: March 20-21

• Second round: March 22-23

• Sweet 16: March 27-28

• Elite Eight: March 29-30

• Final Four: April 3

• Championship game: April 5

How to stream the 2026 Men’s NCAA Tournament

Jacob Kupferman via Getty Images

CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery share the broadcast rights to the men’s tournament, so TV coverage will be spread across four networks. During the course of March Madness, games will air on CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV, with the final rounds and championship game landing on TBS.

If you already have a paid TV plan (such as traditional cable), a good way to watch the men’s tournament is with the March Madness Live app or website. There’s a big catch though: CBS games aren’t available in the app. That means this is really only a good option through the Elite Eight. Once you log in with your TV provider credentials, you can watch games on the other networks in one spot with features like multiview (up to four games at once) and a Fast Break stream that covers all the in-progress games in one spot.

The app also offers ways to follow your bracket, if you filled it out on MarchMadness.com. And when you’re watching on desktop, the crucial Boss Button will throw up a fake work screen to keep your job safe. In addition to your laptop or phone, March Madness Live is also available on Amazon devices, Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS, macOS, Google Play, LG smart TVs, Roku and Xbox consoles.

The most affordable option to watch every game is to actually use two services. It’s not ideal, I know, but it will save you a lot of money. HBO Max’s Basic plan is $11/month and gives you access to live games from TNT, TBS and truTV with three-game multiview (46 games total). That includes the Final Four and National Championship as those three games are on TBS this year. If you splurge for a pricier plan ($23/month), you can stream games in Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos surround sound. For the CBS games, you’ll need a Paramount+ Premium subscription that costs $14/month ($6 for two months for new users). So, with this best price scenario, streaming all of the men’s tournaments will cost $25 across two apps.

A live TV service like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV is over $80 more per month at full price, but they would offer you all the games in the men’s tournament in one place. YouTube TV is currently on sale for $60/month for the first two months after a free 10-day trial. Hulu + Live TV now includes Disney+ and ESPN Select, hence its higher price.

How to stream the 2026 Women’s NCAA Tournament

Joe Buglewicz via Getty Images

While Warner Brothers Discovery owns the rights to the men’s NCAA Tournament, ESPN has the women’s bracket locked down. Every game of the women’s tournament will be spread across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS, including the First Four matchups. The Final Four will be on ESPN, but the championship game will air on ABC. All three of those culminating games will stream on ESPN+ (and in the ESPN app) as MegaCast feeds.

ESPN says the MegaCasts are available in two options. First, Beyond the Rim provides an aerial camera angle with the main commentary and replays, plus the addition of enhanced stats. On the Rail shows you game action the full length of the floor. This feed will offer “natural” sound and replays. 

Since ESPN+ won’t get every game, it’s not an option if you want to watch the entire tournament. However, since last year’s March Madness, Disney debuted standalone offerings for ESPN. The most affordable option here is ESPN Select which includes women’s college basketball and costs $13/month. 

You could also opt for a live-TV streaming service like Sling, YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV for a comprehensive experience. Sling is the cheapest of these, with the requisite Orange and Sports Extra plan costing $57 (Sling is currently offering a discount on the first month of Orange). YouTube and Hulu live TV options are both more expensive at over $80/month (YouTube TV currently discounted to $60 for the first two months), so it’s a matter of which set of content and features you like best. YouTube TV offers a handy multiview tool so you can watch up to four games at once, but Hulu + Live TV comes with Disney+ and ESPN Select for that cost.

Once you have a TV plan that includes the ESPN family of networks, the ESPN app is the best place to watch the tournament. The mix of scores and info, along with multiview streaming for up to four games at a time on Apple TV and Xbox, make the app a well-equipped conduit for the women’s tournament.

The March Madness website only shows scores and news for the women’s tournament. None of the women’s games will be available for streaming live on the website.

Are any of the March Madness games available to stream for free?

Michael Reaves via Getty Images

Without a TV provider login, you can watch all of the games broadcast on CBS on the March Madness website and mobile apps. Sure, it’s a small sample of the tournament, but it’s completely free and a good option for casual fans who don’t have a paid TV plan they can exploit for more of the action. It’s also a good way to watch the first round at work, if your company hasn’t blocked streaming sites, or if you can discreetly watch on your phone.

For the women’s tournament, there aren’t any games available for free. Unless you have an old-school OTA antenna, that is, in which case you can watch women’s games on ABC (and men’s games on CBS) without any kind of streaming plan. Of course, as this is a streaming guide published in 2026, I’d consider an antenna an extraordinary move.

If you were hoping to use a free trial period to watch March Madness, I’ve got bad news. None of them will last long enough to cover the entire tournament. Some services don’t offer a free trial at all, but the longest is YouTube TV at 10 days. Sadly, that won’t even get you through the second weekend.

What if I want to stream both the men’s and women’s tournaments?

If you’re hoping to stream all of the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, I hope you ordered Samsung’s eight-TV bundle. In terms of streaming services, just jump straight to a live-TV option like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV. I prefer the former because of its multiview feature. At times when there are multiple games that you want to watch, especially during the first two rounds, you’ll want multiview in order to keep tabs on all of the action.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/march-madness-2026-how-to-watch-every-game-of-the-ncaa-basketball-tournaments-154903317.html?src=rss

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Each of writer/creator/director Steven Conrad’s series has been distinctive, which is to say, unsettling and off-kilter. Patriot; Perpetual Grace, LTD, and the tough-to-stream Ultra City Smiths each has a style and tone that sets it apart from anything else on television, and also each other. They’ve also all struggled to break out amid a bustling streaming pack, though that may well be changing: only a few episodes in, Conrad’s new HBO series DTF St. Louis is building buzz.

The shows follows Floyd Smernitch (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), a married sign language interpreter with a fading sex life and a weird penis (it’s a plot point) who saves the life of local meteorologist and recumbent bicyclist Clark Forrest (Jason Bateman). The two become friends, and Clark introduces Floyd to a dating app for married people looking for side action. They both sign up, but within a few weeks, Floyd is found dead, and the police investigate it as a murder (no spoilers: this all happens within the first act of the first episode). Linda Cardellini stars as Carol, Floyd’s wife, who’s also having an affair with Clark.

To DTF‘s credit, I’m not sure there’s another show exactly like it, but the 10 I’ve highlighted below all manage to juggle a similarly smart, quirky, and slightly surreal tone while unraveling plots rich in secrets and lies in unexpected settings. Stream DTF St. Louis on HBO Max, then sample these other series between episodes.

Patriot (2015 – 2018)

Shot through with a vein of black comedy that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Coen brothers movie, Patriot is the story of a beleaguered intelligence officer who just cannot catch a break. Michael Dorman is John Tavner, tasked with ensuring that the leading candidate for the presidency of Iran doesn’t win. An elaborate plan to support a more moderate rival candidate sees him taking on a non-official cover identity and getting a job at a Milwaukee piping firm. After he blows the interview, he needs to eliminate his hapless competition for the job, then borrow urine for the drug test, efforts that wind up exposing him to extortion, and things spiral from there. As the screwups began to stack higher and higher, John’s situation becomes ever more precarious (and darkly hilarious—his musical talent means that a lot of exposition comes in the form of extremely specific folk songs that he performs at open mics under yet another assumed name). The show comes from DTF St. Louis’s very own creator Steven Conrad, so while the genre isn’t a 1:1 match, the tone certainly is. Stream Patriot on Prime Video.

Patriot (2015 – 2018)

Deadloch (2023 – )

Both a twisty crime procedural and a brilliant satire of the genre, this Australian import follows Dulcie Collins (Kate Box), the fastidious senior sergeant of the police force in the fictional town of Deadloch. When a body turns up on the beach, Dulcie is joined by Madeleine Sami’s Eddie Redcliffe, a crud, generally obnoxious detective brought in to help solve the case. Their unraveling of the web of secrets in the tiny Tasmanian town is addictive, and as an added bonus, cop thriller tropes are mercilessly mocked throughout. A new season is dropping soon. Stream Deadloch on Prime Video.

Deadloch (2023 – )

at Prime Video

at Prime Video

The Chair Company (2025 – )

Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin followed up their Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson with this… cringe comedy/thriller? Somehow this surreal, genre-defying caper broke HBO Max records, and deservedly so. Robinson plays Ron Trosper, a middle manager in charge of building a new shopping mall. A collapsing chair during a public presentation sends Ron on a quest to uncover a massive conspiracy—he’s convinced that the broken chair is just the first rung in a ladder of sabotage. The show sends us along with him on a darkly funny, sometimes horrific, journey down a rabbit hole that still, nonetheless, feels like a reflection of a modern American work culture that’s no less nuts than Ron’s conspiracy of chairs. Stream The Chair Company on HBO Max.

The Chair Company (2025 – )

at HBO Max

at HBO Max

The Shrink Next Door (2021)

A dark comedy that also happens to be based on a true story, this miniseries stars Will Ferrell as Marty Markowitz and Paul Rudd as his therapist, Dr. Ike Herschkopf. Over the course of nearly thirty years, the good doctor ingratiated himself into Marty’s life while collecting payments of several million dollars. Ferrell and Rudd play against type, leaning into the show’s central mystery: how the hell does a reasonable person give someone so much control over their existence? It’s by no means grim, as the show also recognizes that there’s a core absurdity to the relationship between the two. Stream The Shrink Next Door on Apple TV+.

The Shrink Next Door (2021)

at Apple TV+

at Apple TV+

Bodkin (2024)

Less domestic in its concerns than DTF, this one is nonetheless firmly in dark comedy/murder mystery territory. Bodkin takes us to the title’s rather quirky Irish coastal town. Will Forte plays Gilbert Power, an American podcaster who arrives to investigate the cold case of three people who went missing during a Samhain celebration three decades prior. He’s soon joined by Dove Maloney (Siobhán Cullen), a Dublin-born journalist who’d been living in London, and aspiring journalist Emmy Sizergh (Robyn Cara). It’s very nearly a satire of the genre, with an engaging mystery at its heart nonetheless. Stream Bodkin on Netflix.

Bodkin (2024)

at Netflix

at Netflix

Perpetual Grace LTD (2019)

A cult favorite that didn’t last long, this was another distinctive Steven Conrad series (co-created with Bruce Terris) that felt like nothing else on TV. Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) plays James, a disturbed and depressed former firefighter in rural New Mexico who gets roped into a scheme by Paul (Damon Herriman), the son of local pastor “Pa” Brown (Ben Kingsley). Pa is a bad guy, ripping off his parishioners via a shady rehab center. Paul figures that he can get James to infiltrate the center and ingratiate himself, robbing the shady pastor while a similarly crooked local sheriff (Luis Guzman) gets Pa out of the way. It’s a juicy and addictive neo-noir thriller, with the type of wonderfully stylized dialogue that you’ll recognize from DTF. Buy Perpetual Grace LTD from Prime Video and Apple TV.

Perpetual Grace LTD (2019)

at Prime Video

at Prime Video

Landscapers (2021)

Another in the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction genre, this dark comedy does several things that make it quite a bit more interesting, and far more weird, than the usual true crime narrative. The first great choice is in its casting: Olivia Colman and David Thewliss play Susan and Christopher Edwards, a mild-mannered couple who were discovered to have murdered Susan’s parents and buried them in the back garden, even while sending off Christmas cards to the “vacationing” parents. The show smartly doesn’t try very hard to decipher motives, instead interrogating our need to understand people like Susan and Edward. Stream Landscapers on HBO Max.

Landscapers (2021)

at HBO Max

at HBO Max

The ‘Burbs (2026 – )

A bit sillier than DTF, this fun, loose adaptation of the 1989 Tom Hanks film nonetheless covers much of the same ground: secrets, infidelity, and murder in unlikely places. Keke Palmer’s Samira and Jack Whitehall’s Rob move back to his impossibly safe and tidy hometown, their new house across the street from a dilapidated Victorian eyesore that may or may not have been the location of a murder a couple of decades before—a girl who only wanted to get out. As Samira adjusts to new motherhood as well as life on the cul-de-sac, she learns that even the nicest of her neighbors (played by Julia Duffy, Paula Pell, Mark Proksch, and Kapil Talwalkar) have secrets, and comes to suspect that her husband knows more about the missing girl than he’s letting on. Stream The ‘Burbs on Peacock.

The ‘Burbs (2026 – )

at Peacock

at Peacock

Dead to Me (2019 – 2022)

Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini (also in DTF) make for an all-time-great TV pairing in this dark, twisty comedy about a couple of women who become united in tragedy and lies. Applegate is Jen Harding, a realtor whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run incident; she’s not dealing very well, and takes a bit of inspiration from Cardellini’s Judy, who has maintained a cheery disposition following her fiancé Steve’s death from a heart attack—easier to do given that Steve’s still secretly alive. And then we discover that Judy has a storage unit with a car that looks suspiciously like the one that killed Jen’s husband. That’s all just part of the first episode, and the show only gets wilder from there. Stream Dead to Me on Netflix.

Dead to Me (2019)

at Netflix

at Netflix

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (2026 – )

Probably the most batty, surreal show on this list (which is saying quite a bit), How to Get to Heaven comes from Irish playwright and Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, though that earlier and justifiably beloved show won’t quite prepare you for McGee’s latest. Three high school friends from Belfast reunite after learning that their fourth bestie has died unexpectedly—except that maybe she didn’t, a mixed blessing given that they all have secrets that they were hoping to bury. Now they’re off to investigate the mystery of the maybe-murder, and find themselves immediately in way (way way way) over their heads. The tone is all over the place in a way that somehow really works. Stream How to Get to Heaven from Belfast on Netflix.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (2026 – )

at Netflix

at Netflix

Amazon just launched one-hour and three-hour delivery options in many cities and towns throughout the US. As a matter of fact, the company says three-hour delivery windows are already available in over 2,000 locations, while one-hour windows have launched in “hundreds” of cities. You can check to see if your area is covered by clicking right here.

Just like same-day and next-day delivery, this doesn’t cover every available item. Amazon boasts that over 90,000 products are ready for “fast, reliable delivery in just a few clicks.” There has been a priority placed on the kinds of items typically needed within 60 to 180 minutes. Users can order “everyday essentials like pantry items, cleaning supplies, health and beauty items and over-the-counter medications.”

The new delivery options also cover some fun, but perhaps not essential, items like electronics, toys and clothing. Hey, a Nintendo Switch 2 to play Pokopia could be considered essential to many.

Amazon

These high-octane delivery methods don’t come cheap, even for Prime members. One-hour deliveries cost $10 and three-hour deliveries cost $5. Customers without a Prime membership pay $20 for one-hour deliveries and $10 for three-hour deliveries. The same-day delivery option remains free for Prime members.

This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into ultra-quick delivery windows. The company has been experimenting with this kind of thing for years. It started a program called Amazon Now in the 2010s that handled that sort of thing, which eventually changed to Prime Now. It was sunsetted in 2021.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/amazon-launches-one–and-three-hour-delivery-options-in-the-us-151536118.html?src=rss

The Nintendo Switch 2’s backward compatibility with Switch games is generally pretty good, and a few games have gotten patches from their developers to allow them to take advantage of the higher resolutions the console supports, among other features.

For unpatched Switch games running on the Switch 2 while it’s docked, there should generally be no loss of quality compared to playing the same game on the Switch—the game will run at 1080p on both consoles and should generally run about the same as long as there aren’t other compatibility problems. But games running on the Switch 2 in handheld mode can actually look worse than they do on the original Switch, mainly because they’ll still run at the original Switch’s native 720p resolution, which then has to be stretched out to fit the Switch 2’s 1080p display.

A new Switch 2 system update released yesterday (as reported by NintendoLife) has introduced a partial solution for this specific problem. Version 22.0.0 of the Switch’s software includes an optional feature called “Handheld Mode Boost,” which can be enabled by opening the console’s settings, then System settings, and scrolling down to “Nintendo Switch Software Handling.” This setting will attempt to run original Switch games using the same settings they would use while docked, even while the console is in handheld mode—this usually means a step up to the Switch 2’s native 1080p resolution, along with other graphical upgrades.

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You can sum up the gamer response to NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 announcement with the ever-relevant Fallout 4 meme: “Everyone disliked that.” Across social media and Reddit last night, I couldn’t find anyone who’s genuinely positive about the potential for DLSS 5, which uses AI to add “photorealistic” lighting and materials to in-game models and environments. Instead, it’s mostly complaints about the feature being another avenue for AI slop. And you know what? I agree.

It’s not unusual to see gamers being reflexively angry about new technology on the internet, especially when it’s being pitched by NVIDIA as the “biggest breakthrough in computer graphics” since its RTX 20-series GPUs arrived in 2018 with real-time ray tracing. There was plenty of suspicion around DLSS’s original AI upscaling model, as well as the “fake” frames generated by later iterations. But the few demos we’ve seen of DLSS 5 basically look like “yassified” AI filters for popular games.

Leon and Grace from Resident Evil: Requiem have more distinct facial and hair detail, but they look a bit too slick. There are more wrinkles on an old woman in Hogwarts Legacy. And the face, hair and clothing from a Starfield character gain an uncanny sheen.

None of the demos have the immediate impact of the Star Wars real-time ray tracing short ILMxLab produced with NVIDIA seven years ago. That demonstration showed us glorious reflections and lighting effects we’d never seen before in real-time. The DLSS 5 demos, on the other hand, don’t look much different from the AI filters that make you look more presentable for Zoom calls. There’s no genuine excitement for DLSS 5, just NVIDIA telling us that it’s groundbreaking.

There’s also plenty of concern about DLSS 5 straying from an artist’s original intent, as well as a potential homogenization of game visuals if every developer starts using the feature. NVIDIA claims developers will have “detailed controls for intensity, color grading and masking,” which will help DLSS 5 stay in line with a game’s aesthetic. But we don’t have any direct developer experience with the feature yet — some artists may want far more control than NVIDIA wants to give.

The difference between DLSS 5 and earlier versions NVIDIA’s upscaling is like the difference between generative AI and more traditional machine learning models. NVIDIA relied on the latter to make low-resolution textures and models appear sharper, and later to insert generated frames to smooth out gameplay and raise your fps count. As Wirecutter and former Polygon editor Arthuer Gies points out, you could argue those features were in service of delivering what developers originally intended. But DLSS 5’s neural model applies its concept of “photorealism” on top of what games are rendering — it’s like watching a Pixar movie that let OpenAI’s Sora do a final visual pass.

Part of the negative response towards DLSS 5 may stem from a widespread anti-gen AI sentiment, but that doesn’t devalue the criticisms either. Similar to AI generated text, images and video, there’s a dehumanizing aspect about DLSS 5. It can erase the work of human artists (despite how much control NVIDIA claims they have), and it also feels like a calculated attempt to appeal to gamers who just want shinier graphics. NVIDIA showed off how generative AI could be used to create dialog and voices for NPCs last year at CES, but that was also widely disliked (and I called it a genuine nightmare).

Of course, I can’t fully judge DLSS 5 until I see it in action beyond a short demo. But I think the visceral disgust is an important indicator that many gamers aren’t onboard with the AI-powered future NVIDIA is trying to sell us. And perhaps the idea of chasing “photorealism” may be a bit of a fool’s errand. It may be appropriate for some games, but as Nintendo and indie PC devs have shown, you can also make some of the best games of all time without striving for realism. Tears of the Kingdom could use a better framerate and higher resolution textures, but it certainly doesn’t need DLSS 5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/gamers-are-right-to-be-disgusted-by-nvidias-dlss-5-151105593.html?src=rss

Samples from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five nucleobases — the key building blocks of DNA and RNA. “This strengthens the idea that asteroids may have brought the ingredients for the first living organisms to Earth long ago,” reports New Scientist. From the report: Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft visited Ryugu in 2018, where it shot two projectiles — one small and one large — into the surface of the asteroid and collected the resulting debris. It arrived back at Earth with the samples in 2020 and researchers have been analyzing these in detail ever since. Yasuhiro Oba at Hokkaido University in Japan and his colleagues examined two samples, one from the asteroid’s surface and one comprised of subsurface materials excavated by the projectiles. In both, the team found all five primary nucleobases, which are the compounds that make up the nucleic acids DNA and RNA when combined with sugars and phosphoric acid.

This isn’t the first time that nucleobases have been found in asteroid samples: they have been seen in meteorites, too, and in samples from the asteroid Bennu. The researchers did find different abundances of the various nucleobases among the various samples, though, which hints that these compounds might be useful for tracing asteroids and meteorites back to the parent bodies that they broke off from in the distant past, as well as understanding the evolution of those parent bodies over time. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) earbuds aren’t the newest exercise earbuds on the market, and they’re not reinventing the wheel; however, they’re a tried-and-true favorite with ANC and a comfortable fit, making them a sportier version of AirPods Pro for gym-goers and runners, with a slight added edge when it comes to battery life. Right now, a pair in white is 35% off and currently at its lowest price ever at $129.99 (originally $199.95).

Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) Earbuds

$129.99
at Amazon

$199.95
Save $69.96

$129.99
at Amazon

$199.95
Save $69.96

These true wireless earbuds from Beats feature strong noise cancellation and Apple’s signature H1 chip, making them similar to AirPods Pro with Apple features such as spatial Audio with head tracking, Adaptive EQ, hands-free Siri, and one-touch iOS pairing. They last up to 6 hours with ANC on (compared to 4.5 hours on the Airpods Pro with ANC on) and get an extra 21 to 23 hours from the charging case.

Like most Beats headphones, they have physical touch buttons, which is a perk for those who don’t like touch controls. The buds fit “comfortably and securely,” according to CNET, despite having a one-size-fits-all wingtip design. They have 9.5mm drivers, which are a little more bass-heavy and punchy than AirPods Pro. The ANC is reliable, doing a good job of blocking out low-frequency sounds in crowded settings, but PCMag notes that it may not be as effective against higher frequencies, unlike slightly pricier models such as the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds.   

While they surpass AirPods in a couple of categories, their six microphones perform slightly worse, with less clarity and less background noise reduction. That said, CNET still ranks them above the AirPods Pro for overall performance and fitness use. If you’re an Apple user looking for comfortable everyday earbuds that can be used everywhere from your daily commute to your workouts, the Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) are a solid choice, especially at their lowest price ever.

Sony is rolling out a firmware update for its PlayStation Portal handheld that introduces a new quality option for both Remote Play and Cloud Streaming. Choosing the 1080p High Quality mode means that you’ll be able to stream games at a higher bitrate compared with the 1080p Standard option. 

You can switch to this mode by going to Quick Menu > Max Resolution and picking 1080p High Quality while you’re playing a game. You’ll need to restart your game session for the change to take effect. Naturally, 1080p High Quality will use more data than the other resolution options.

Sony says that more than half of all Portal users are now PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, meaning they can use the Cloud Streaming option on the device. With that in mind, the company is making some Cloud Streaming changes as part of this firmware update. 

The company says it has refined the search screen — from now on, whenever you open this up, the on screen keyboard will pop up immediately. That’s a nice little quality-of-life update that streamlines things a bit. When you pick the “stream” option on pages for game bundles (i.e. for any title that includes multiple games), you’ll be able to select a specific game to jump into. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment

There are notification changes too. If you receive a game invite while playing a supported title, you’ll now see a clear notification on your screen. Trophy notifications should now display properly too, with the trophy name and image showing up. Unlocking a platinum trophy will cause an animated notification to appear. 

There’s one more tweak to the system with this Portal update as Sony attempts to make the onboarding experience a bit smoother. Those who pick up a Portal but don’t already have a PlayStation account will be able to create one and then sign in on the handheld by scanning a QR code on their mobile device. Such folks will still need to have access to a PS5 or sign up for PS Plus Premium to actually get any use out of the Portal, of course.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-playstation-portal-update-is-adding-a-1080p-high-quality-mode-142216189.html?src=rss