Coxxs

Streaming with VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) on Intel Integrated Graphics

After a driver update on my Surface Pro 8, I discovered that it finally supports VRR (Variable Refresh Rate).

This means the display’s refresh rate is no longer fixed at 60/120 Hz, but dynamically adjusts according to the rendering speed of the content. This brings lower latency and provides smoother visuals when game frame rates fluctuate.

Although the Surface Pro isn’t ideal for running demanding games directly, it’s great for streaming games running on a high-performance PC. With VRR support, it can slightly reduce streaming latency and improve visual smoothness.

When I enabled Moonlight on my Surface Pro (Intel Iris Xe) and Sunshine on the PC (Radeon RX 9070 XT) to stream content from the PC to the Surface Pro, I encountered some issues:

When the game on the PC was in complex scenes with frame rates between 48~115 fps, I could see smooth and tear-free visuals on the Surface. I was very satisfied.
However, when the game on the PC ran in simpler scenes with frame rates exceeding 115 fps, the Surface would not only experience frame drops but also screen tearing.

This is roughly what screen tearing looks like (simulated image)

VRR itself is not a silver bullet: when the game’s frame rate (fps) is approximately equal to or higher than the display’s refresh rate (Hz), the displayed image will exhibit tearing. This is because VRR disengages when frame rate ≥ refresh rate. My Surface Pro’s screen is 120Hz, while the PC screen’s refresh rate is 120/144Hz.

VRR is quite complicated, so how do you set it up correctly?

Remove Google Lens from Chrome

Google Lens was originally a very convenient feature that could be used for reverse image search, translating images, and OCR to recognize text in pictures.

However, for such a practical feature, Google has chosen to integrate it into Chrome in the worst possible way: as soon as a logged-in user clicks the Omnibox (address bar), Google Lens immediately pops up as the first option, making it extremely easy to trigger accidentally. Moreover, it cannot be disabled in Chrome’s settings.

The Last Few Years of AI Coding

This is a blog post written for my future self to look back on. There are two reasons for saying this: first, looking back from the future at how rapidly a technology has developed is quite interesting^*. Second, uh… these days everyone is chatting with AI, and hardly anyone reads personal blogs anymore (maybe AI will read them…).

* Just like how this site documented in 2013 the “arduous” journey of deploying HTTPS, which has now become completely routine.

As everyone knows, the AI boom began with the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. However, this article will start a little earlier.

Fixing Intel Wi-Fi Stuttering on Latest Driver (Global BG Scan Blocking)

Recently, while using Moonlight + Sunshine for game streaming on my Surface Pro 8 (PC wired to the router, Surface using Wi-Fi), even with full Wi-Fi signal strength, I experienced occasional audio crackling and video stuttering. Running PingPlotter in the background for network testing revealed that every 10 minutes, latency would spike for a few seconds, causing Moonlight’s audio crackling and video stuttering.

After some troubleshooting, I pinpointed the culprit: the Intel Wi-Fi adapter’s Global Background Scan (Global BG Scan) feature. This function is designed to periodically scan surrounding Wi-Fi signals to optimize connections or switch to a stronger access point (AP). However, in scenarios like game streaming, which demand low latency and high stability, background scanning disrupts the network, causing video and audio stuttering.

Switch 2 Mouse Mode Input Latency Test

The long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 is finally in my hands.

The Switch 2 introduces a new mouse mode, where you simply hold the Joy-Con 2 on a surface like a mouse, and a cursor appears on the screen, similar to the Lenovo Legion Go released two years ago. However, my first impression of the Switch 2’s mouse mode is—laggy! Extremely laggy! It’s even laggier than my already high-latency Bluetooth mouse.

To prove this, I used the 480fps slow-motion camera on my OnePlus 13 to conduct a simple test comparing the Joy-Con 2 with my Logitech MX Anywhere 3. The test measured the number of frames from when the mouse “starts moving” to when the screen “shows a change.” In more professional tests, you’d also measure the input latency “after” the mouse starts moving, but due to my basic testing setup, I couldn’t do that.

How to activate Synology Active Backup for Business without Internet

Synology DSM’s Active Backup for Business (ABB) suite is a great backup solution, but after the initial installation or reinstallation, it requires activation with a Synology account to use.

Active Backup for Business is great, but it requires logging into an account and online activation for first-time use

However, I don’t like offline software that requires online activation to function — if the server fails or goes offline one day, or if there’s a local network issue, and I happen to have reinstalled the software, it becomes unusable.

There are several methods circulating online for local activation of such suites, but they are quite complex. So, I spent some time write a simple and universal activation method for future use.

Fixing Ultra 7 265K’s Frequent Stuttering

Perhaps because Intel realized their new products weren’t selling, the Core Ultra 200S series CPUs have seen significant price cuts. I took the opportunity to build a new PC with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, temporarily using the integrated graphics. While the Core Ultra 200S isn’t great for gaming performance (especially online games), for users like me with long uptime needs and a 4K monitor who don’t play online games, the 265K is quite suitable — it’s highly power-efficient at idle and very quiet with air cooling.

The motherboard is an MSI PRO Z890-A, which only provides one HDMI port for video output. Although this motherboard’s HDMI supports 4K 120Hz, due to bandwidth limitations, the color format downgrades from RGB to YUV420. This results in visible color fringing around small text. However, the motherboard has 2 × Thunderbolt 4 ports, and using a Thunderbolt/USB 4 cable to connect to the monitor allows for DP protocol output at 4K 144Hz with RGB (using DSC compression, but the difference is imperceptible to the naked eye).

Enables Accessibility Features for Sideloaded Apps on Android 15

I recently got a new phone and installed Smart AutoClicker to automatically click the skip button while idling in single-player games. However, on the accessibility settings page, I couldn’t grant the clicker permission.

Even after clicking to enable, the switch immediately turns off automatically

Stock Android shows a “Restricted Settings” prompt

I tried using an adb command (adb shell settings put secure enabled_accessibility_services ...), but it still didn’t work. After checking logcat, I found this error:

Skipping enabling service disallowed by device admin policy: ComponentInfo{com.buzbuz.smartautoclicker/com.buzbuz.smartautoclicker.SmartAutoClickerService}...

After looking into the Android codebase, I realized it’s due to a new security mechanism introduced in Android. Taking this opportunity, I’ve compiled a few solutions for those who need them.

Enable TCP BBR v2 on Linux & Windows 11

BBR is a TCP congestion control algorithm developed by Google. It improves upon the shortcomings of traditional congestion control algorithms (like CUBIC), which reduce speed upon packet loss, significantly enhancing bandwidth utilization in high packet loss environments.

It’s important to note that congestion control algorithms manage the packet sending rate. For example, if a Google server enables BBR, its upload speed will maximize the available bandwidth; from the user’s perspective, this results in faster download speeds.

As is well known…

Many people enable BBR on their Linux servers with just a few commands:

echo "net.core.default_qdisc=fq" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
echo "net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control=bbr" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sysctl -p

As a result, when downloading files from the server, it utilizes the full bandwidth. However, when uploading files, the speed remains slow because the system used for uploading is still running a traditional congestion control algorithm.

ESXi 7.0 + R8168 / R8169 Installation Notes

Installing ESXi on an unsupported device is a matter of luck. Unfortunately, I found that my computer’s built-in NIC is a Realtek R8168 — a network card no longer supported by ESXi.

In the ESXi 6.x era, we could add the net55-r8168 driver to make ESXi support this NIC, but after ESXi 7.x disabled all Linux-dependent drivers, this method no longer works.