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UPDATE: We will be filming DF Direct #166 tomorrow, so per the post below, this will arrive later than usual with a much shorter early access period. We'll do our best to get it to you ASAP!

Hi everyone, hope you're all well! It's time for our weekly call to questions, which also doubles up as a call for potential topics.

We're facing a bit of a quandary here - do we record tomorrow pre-Summer Games 'Fest' as per normal and lump in SGF coverage with the Xbox Direct Special we'll be doing next week? Or do we record #166 a day later (Saturday morning) and put the Direct out later, and publicly on Sunday. On balance, it's looking like the latter. This will cut down the usual early access window dramatically, but it is what it is! Normal service will resume the following week.

Anyway, #166 will be a more 'normal' Direct compared to the Xbox one that follows and I'm not sure it'll be another two hour epic. Right now, we're going to be talking about the removal of the 8K marketing from the PS5 box and the new PSVR 2 PC adapter, and perhaps the rumour that The Last of Us Part 2 has been finished on PC for months now, but won't be seen until 2025.

Chances are that Oliver, John and Alex will be at the mics - I'm likely to attend IGN Live in the US, returning to the UK mid next week.

Anything else you'd like us to talk about? Comment below. And as usual, we'd love to hear your questions, so have at it! If we do a normal Direct (unlikely), cut-off for questions will be 8am UK time on Friday. If we go for post-SGF (more likely), 24 hours later.

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Comments

molluscule

Do you think Gaussian Splatting could be a new frontier for ultra-realistic, ultra-performance real-time rendering?

andre surles

Did Sony just kill the PSVR 3 by switching the onus of VR to PC?

Critically Wild

I say wait and leverage the algorithm on Sunday, even if it means we get it same time as the to-patrons.

Coco

+1 for the latter proposal.

Jonny_5a

Been noticing a trend towards beefing up dedicated AI processing hardware across industry. Ignoring how AI currently seems to be a solution looking for a problem do you think there are any ways this hardware could be useful in games?

cuicuit

Is there any controller for adult hands out there of decent quality? The official ones for Xbox and PS are targeting kids and the size makes it very uncomfortable, especially with joint issues... (Definitely not a kid anymore!) I would be very interested in review content for such peripherals or any recommendations in general.

Special Agent Cooper

Hi DF! Everyone's talking about 8K as the next potential step after 4K and I'm wondering: Why is 6K just not a thing? Not only in games but also in movies and TVs there seems to be a silent agreement that nobody cares about 6K. I don't really get it. Many cameras do film in 6K and for gaming it is much more realistic to achieve than 8K. Wouldn't everyone jump at the opportunity to put a new shiny label on their boxes WITHOUT having to lie? And ultimately, 8K just might be overkill anyway, so perhaps 6K is the final frontier. Greetings from Hamburg.

Owen Quinlan (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-15 00:00 Does anyone in the DF team 3D print and if so what has been some of your favorite files you've printed?
2024-06-06 11:15

Perfect_Organism

I’m sure I’m not the only one to ask this, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on Lossless Scaling frame gen. I’ve been playing Nier Automata, a game locked to 60…ish, and to my eye - playing from a couch distance away from the TV - it’s doing some pretty magical stuff to the frame rate. And the buy in price was like a fiver, which has only added to the magic.

Rich

AI is not a "solution looking for a problem", there's good reason why so many different applications have incorporated generative AI - because customers actually use it. Adobe added generative AI to various image and video editing software, Meta/Google have been using AI in their recommender systems for more than a decade at this point, Microsoft etc. These companies are not just throwing away money because they like Jensen, it makes an actual difference to their bottom line!

Diecou

Hi DF! Sony is officially going to launch the PC adapter for PSVR2. Do you think they are doing this to boost PSVR2 sales or they have given up on it and this is a way to give it a 2nd life and avoid bad PR?

AGSMA

Hi DF. I'm off to the Annecy Festival for a week and having a blast, meaning that I won't be able to watch this current DF Direct in which this one Q&A entry will be read by Rich (if ever read). Given that I won't find the time to sit down and watch this Direct in specific until a week later, that gave me a funny but intriguing thought: have you considered taking advantage of YouTube Shorts for your tech analysis or even your Directs? Sure, DF Clips exist and making actual YouTube Shorts would be redundant, but it would be funny seeing a massive 2-hour podcast episode condensed into a couple of seconds where each news topic would be resumed in two sentences or so. DF Direct: ADHD Edition. Thanks, and have fun with the Geoffs.

Matt Ward

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the PSVR2 PC adapter. I'm a PC gamer and considering buying the PSVR2 (+ PC adapter) because I prefer to use OLED when gaming as I like dark horror games and the PSVR2 seems to be the best OLED VR solution for consumers at the minute.

Container7

HI! I hear that Rich and John use LG OLEDs as monitors. I have heard that Cleartext does not work well with the subpixel structure of the WOLED panels that LG uses. In regards to Windows text rendering, do either of you have any suggestions for making it work well on those panels? Cheers!

sirseky

Hey guys, What do you think about the growing market of "demake style" games? Do you sometimes check them out? What do you think about the idea of a "demake"? Is the rise of these games driven by increasing dissatisfaction with corporate practices in modern gaming?

Jake

Rich touched on it briefly a few weeks ago, though wasn’t very impressed - but this was pre the 2.0 FG update I think. I’d agree with you and +1 for a revisit as I was equally unimpressed until the 2.0 update!

Perfect_Organism

Ah, must have missed that being bought up. I saw Daniel Owens coverage about it suggesting certain objects can get a bit garbled, and whilst I have no doubt thats true, from a couch, it's definitely my preferred way to play Nier.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Just a few short months after the original - MSI has shown the "MSI CLAW 8 AI+" which has an updated Intel Lunar Lake chip, a full length 2280 Nvme drive and upto 32GB of LPDDR5 with an 80 watt/hr battery. Do you gents think the significant jump in hardware will be enough to outweigh intel's driver/API catchup woes? Also why didn't they call it the MSI CLAW-S?

Songmin Lee

Hello! Why do some people say you should limit your framerate to a couple frames under your maximum refresh rate when using VRR? I only turn the vsync on without any framerate limit and VRR seems to work fine. Also Alex, do you still have a plan to make a video on framerate settings on PC? iirc you talked about this in a previous DF direct episode. (like what's the best way to limit framerate (RTSS? Graphics card driver?), how to achieve smooth 40fps limit without any erratic frametime etc.)

Eric Benoit

Hello gentlemen, do you think a Switch 2 lite is off the table due to more powerful hardware requirements? I know it's a Switch that doesn't actually switch, but the Switch lite is a great device on its own.

FrametimeSommelier

Hi DF Team! How bad is the situation with the Xbox Series S? Is its mediocre 10GB of system RAM becoming a problem for next gen game development? One of my most anticipated game of the year is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and the producer of the game confirmed earlier this week that the Xbox Series S technical limitations, namely the 10 GB of RAM, have impacted Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's scope. Due to the RAM situation, Warhorse Studios decided to make the game only 25% bigger than its predecessor. Is this an excuse for not increasing the games scope by a larger margin or does this claim actually has some merit?

1040STF

Do you think the announcement of a PSVR2 adapter for PC marks the resurrection of the PSVR2 support on PS5... or its funeral?

Alex's Retro PC

Hi team, thinking about the recent statistics about how certain older games consume most playtime, would you be interested in doing a video of PC performance revisiting these titles? We all love a good deep dive on the latest PT, SVOGI, RTX and other exciting acronyms but an overview of how these games run on newer and older hardware could be illuminating !

WillpowerSmith

Hey guys! Long time fan since over 10 years now, but first time posting a question here. The question in question pertains to OLED screens and affordability. Having the Deck OLED, a C1, and a phone released in the last half decade, I'm convinced of how transformative OLED is (it's so beautiful omg). But it is expensive. So time for fortune telling, do you foresee a near future where OLED (or similar grade) panels actually become cheaper and hence more standard across more technologies? It's already happened with phones, a $70 Nokia has a 120hz AMOLED display. But what about the other categories, like handhelds? It's awkward imagining a Deck 2 or Switch 2 without a screen in the ballpark of their previous OLED counterparts. I'll acknowledge average consumer may not care, but I, and I'm sure John agrees, FEAR having to see another off brand grayscale LCD tablet screen in these devices.

lbb12

Hello Rich and DF Team! At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I don't know anyone else who can answer this question more reliably than you guys, so that is why I won't give up in my question being answered... I was hoping by the time a game like Metro Exodus and NVIDIA's open sourcing PhysX awhile ago (as well as continual extinction of dev support for it) that an AMD GPU user/based console would allow the use of its features by now, or am I wrong? Will we ever see a PhysX enhanced title run with those features turned ON for AMD someday (patched-in/updated to run)? Maybe a 'PhysX wrapper' (remember 3DFx Glide Wrappers for non-3DFx card owners?) As mentioned previously, the Batman Arkham series of games are a great example of a title that just seems lacking without the PhysX features, but complete with it (lookup 'Zogrim' on Youtube for best examples). I sincerely appreciate your input 😄👍

Snorlax cat

Do you like the idea of publishers like nintendo or Sony sitting on games before release? Citing Miyamoto's “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad. “, I recall rumors of the Metroid prime remastered being ready for years and it launched never to get patched because it was polished greatly. On the other hand we saw great games being turned around like most CDPR projects, TW3 and specially CP2077. What is DF personal take? I know that from a content perspective a cursed game brings in more stuff, but a polished game is DF's end goal, and rather focusing on the most pressing issues like stutter, tech focus, mobile vs other platforms or DF retro.

Jiruuino

Hi DF-crew, ray tracing is typically used to ground objects in a 3d-space and to make the graphics appear more realistic. I was wondering whether rt could also be exploited for creating a more 'supernatural' appearance. Perhaps the laws and reflection and refraction could be slightly tweaked for a weird dream sequence or a scene in an alternate dimension? Do you know of any games where a physics model was implemented in a unrealistic way to generate an alienated experience? Thanks and keep up the great work!

Dom Datwun

Oh hi there! Long time viewer, first time questioner - a couple of months ago John was talking about doing a “first year of the N64” retrospective, and I’ve been perched on the edge of my low poly, tri-linearly textured seat waiting for it ever since. Any word on that video? Thanks as always for the great commentary and analysis 🙏🏻

Pol Kallamata

Some of the commentary that I've read regarding the 8K label that was present on PS5 boxes suggests that it was a cynical and deceptive marketing ploy. I find this fairly difficult to believe, as I don't really see how that would have duped consumers into buying the console. When the console launched, 8K TVs represented a minuscule part of the addressable market, and the marketing around the new consoles and games all revolved around support for 4K resolution. Could that label simply have been present as a technical specification, detailing something that the console could support in the future if content like video streaming in 8K became more relevant with increased update of 8K displays later in the generation? And now perhaps they're removing the label given that uptake has been very slow and its a largely irrelevant part of the addressable market?

Leftisthominid

When will Will make his triumphant return to DF Direct?

Leftisthominid

How did it feels for the other DFers to see Richard live in person outside of the his UE5-powered Volume?

Leftisthominid

When it comes to getting into PC VR, what would John recommend? Getting the latest Meta Quest headset or to get a PSVR2 (which would also allow one to play Horizon Call of the Mountain on PS5)?

Leftisthominid

I would like to get John's thoughts about LG removing Google Assistant features from their TVs in a recent update. Has LG ever done something like this before where a feature that was built in to a TV was removed? (My understanding here was that Google opted not to renew the contract)

Someguyperson

What do you think of Nvidia's "small" form factor guidelines? I think it's great that they exist, but I think they're a bit big overall. The dimensions (2.5 slots/50 mm x 312 mm x 154.5 mm) are thicker & wider than I would like. I guess I can deal with "~2.3 slots" in terms of thickness, but 154.5 mm in width is absurd! I do recognize that those measurements include space for cabling (which is fantastic), but that means the cards will only fit in cases that have a 120mm fan above the I/O panel. That's normal in an ATX case, but asking for a lot when it comes to SFF. What are your thoughts? Also, RTX 5090 with a 2 slot cooler?!? It better not be air & liquid cooled like a bunch of 4090s out there.

Someguyperson

In Intel's Computex announcements about Xe2, they showed that on a per-clock basis vs. Xe1, they are increasing Compute Dispatch by 7x, Draw performance by a massive 12.5x, and Mesh Shader Dispatch by 4.1x while vector processing is only up by 1.5x and tessellation by a measly 1.2x. Do you think this re- ballancing of each area is a good sign that Intel clearly identified the bottlenecks of the first GPU? Would you expect Battlemage to be much more competitive GPU in the market?

Someguyperson

I think it's much more about a studio trying to recoup their costs earlier vs later. If you invested $60 million into a game over 4-7 years, why would you want to wait even longer to recoup your costs? In the Nintendo case, Miyamoto is right that Nintendo cares more about releasing a game into the right window to maximize the biggest return, since they have enough cash on hand to not really care about a delay. Other studios are funded by a lot of debt though, so they need to pay their creditors back ASAP.

Someguyperson

Welcome to my world for the past 7 months! There's absolutely nothing you can do, apart from trying to push this bug report made by the Blur Busters guy (Mark Rejhon). Please let's all put as much pressure on Microsoft as possible to fix the issue! https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

RiceTilts

Konnichiwa, DF team! I just can't stop thinking about why console lifecycles are still so short. I believe the console lifecycle should be extended beyond the current 6 years on average to ideally 10 years. Consider these reasons: First of all, many first-party studios have yet to develop even one PS5 exclusive title. The current lifecycle doesn’t provide enough time for the development of more than one AAA game, which typically takes around five years each. If the lifecycle were extended to 10 years, studios could ideally produce at least two AAA titles. Moreover, an extended lifecycle would allow PS5 prices to be reduced more comfortably for Sony, attracting more customers, expanding the player base, and increasing profits. Cheaper consoles with great game lineups—who wouldn't want that? Additionally, extending the lifecycle enhances console branding. Look at Nintendo—its games are closely associated with specific consoles, strengthening the brand image. More time with the PS5 would similarly improve its branding, which is important for these businesses. Finally, a longer lifecycle would allow developers to fully harness the PS5’s potential, leading to better launch titles for the next generation and giving developers more time to develop a robust lineup for the PS6. This would drive more people to transition to the new console when it eventually arrives. Moreover, holding onto older systems makes porting games to PC easier and makes the eventual generational leap more significant. Shouldn't these be enough reasons to stop with the ridiculously short console lifespans? The industry needs to adapt to the trend of much longer development cycles.

Someguyperson

I think it's mostly about just how cheap LCD panels are now and how OLED won't ever be as cheap. You can have an expensive LCD (like the one on an Analogue Pocket), but by & large, LCD technology is a race to the bottom of price, while OLED will always have a higher cost basis due to how the panels are made. The actual panels don't actually cost $100 though, the manufacturers know it's a more "premium" feature, so they get some additional margin on the upgrade when they actually sell it to you. Particularly then they're replacing a $10 part with a $70 part, it's a lot easier to just round up and charge the customer $100 rather than the actual $60 cost differential.

Someguyperson

Laptops are great, but most new silicon is targeted at producing the greatest performance per watt, and having that same perf/watt range all the way up the wattage range. The 4090 has incredible perf/watt if you reduce the power budget to 300-350 watts, but you're still burning 2x-3x of the entire laptop's power budget on the GPU alone there. Looking at the Snapdragon X platform, they are advertising they have the best perf/watt from 5 watts, all the way up to 65w, which is again way too much for a laptop. (a 65w Snapdragon X will always be at out a 5w Snapdragon X chip) Laptops will have great performance for the mid-range systems now, but to get the real high-end experience, you simply need to bump up the power budget so the hardware can flex its muscles more.

Someguyperson

Basically all real-time language translation has been performed by AI for the past 5-10 years now, which is a very real use case. AI upscaling is proven to be the way forward to get more fidelity out of less hardware horsepower. If DLSS has shown anything, it's that you really need an NPU because these algorithms are improving all the time, yet can still run on that older hardware if it has an NPU. Everyone is hedging against future software updates that are only possible if they include an NPU.

Someguyperson

The TV industry did try to push 8k a bit (Rich had a panel), but really 6k & 8k is for filmmakers to have more leeway to crop & recompose their footage in post when they present the video to a 4k screen. HDR is what TV manufacturers are pushing more because people can see the difference of an expanded color gamut & dynamic range over the comparatively little increase in resolution.

Perfect_Organism

I love the Switch lite. It feels so cute and robust with the lack of moveable/detachable parts.

Nuwa

Hello DF crew, is the the complaints and outrage online about Sony disabling the PSVR2's HDR, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and most importantly, eyetracking for PC users valid?

Someguyperson

It really comes down to power budget and if Nintendo actually moved to a better process node or not. If the Switch 2 did move to the latest process node without EUV equipment and the power budget is something like 10-15 watts, I don't see a due shrink being very feasible to reduce the power consumption to "lite" levels. If Nintendo went with the same power budget and an older process node, there would still be room for a power reduction via a node shrink for a "lite" console down the line. We simply don't know enough at the moment.

SweetMini

Aloha sweet DF team. Another wave of DMCA take downs conducted on behalf of Nintendo by a third party using AI tools to target mods has happened on wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th, killing effectively dozens of mods. Many Super Smash Bros. character swap/skin mods were targeted , gameplay mods for games including randomizers and maps, Zelda BOTW/TOTK mods, among which the most beloved Zelda's Ballad for BOTW which made our princess playable. The sequel to the mod for TOTK is in jeopardy, it was a New Quest style mod where we would have played Zelda. I feel deeply for the authors of these mods who poured hundreds to thousands of hours of loving labor to enhance the games we enjoy playing. My position is that fair use should be expanded to be more friendly in the context of modding when the game the mod applies to is owned by the same company as the IP being used by the mod in a respectful and non-profit way, here Nintendo IP used to mod Nintendo games. What are your thoughts on the situation ? Take care, have fun, social distanced big hugs for all the hard work.

Aliasing Anonymous

Will widespread implementation of raytracing and path tracing have to wait for better console hardware (i.e. 10th Gen)?

Full House's John SteamOS

What's up lads. QQ: what do I do with my Win10 machine when it gets sunsetted in Oct next year? Nuke it with Linux? What's Linux driver support like on ancient hardware like my GTX 760?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew! I enjoyed listening to you talk about whether reviewing games for videos negatively impact your experience. Also, I love your games of the year videos, because they are more personal. An idea - once or twice a month during DF directs could you share with us what you’ve been playing for fun and why you think those particular games are great? Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey Gentlemen! What was the fist game you saw and think: oh lord, this could not get any better than that. For me it was when I saw Tekken 2 on the original PlayStation. I could not believe my eyes how good it looked!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Good afternoon Digital Founders! What’s your TOP3 indie games of all time, and if not - in the last 3 to 5 years? Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Guten Tag DF Fighters! Do you all plan to visit Gamescom this year? Given that E3 is completely dead and current prerecorded console „events” - boring and uneventful- are you looking forward to having some expo experience in Köln? Cheers!

Wil Gieseler

Would it be worth adding boot time performance to game reviews? Not the initial load with shader compilation, but the time it takes to go from, say Steam to actual gameplay. This has a huge UX benefit, especially on platforms like Steam Deck, and developers seem to be fond of painfully long logos, start screens, and initial loads. Would love to encourage games to boot directly to gameplay.

Diego ElRey

Hello DF, this is a question for John. You mentioned going to Tokyo later this year. Do you have any concerns regarding the seeming "over tourism" that Japan is currently seeing, and if so, how do you think your trip could be affected if at all?

Diego ElRey

Hi DF, exclamation point. How much are the consoles affecting RT adaptation overall? There are showcase games where Nvidia sponsors them and they get the suite on PC, but these are limited titles and most if not all of them are games I personally don't care for. What does it take for more mainstream games, like racers with licensed cars, and GTA6 to get full RT suites? Does it take the consoles being capable of 30 series level RT? And how to they get there with AMD? It takes a 7900 XTX to do 3080-90 levels of RT last I looked into it. It doesn't seem like the Professional is going to be that level, unless I'm missing something. How do we get RT/PT into actually fun games?

Ednamode

If I may ask one final predicted switch 2 performance vs steam deck performance: do you predict that the cyberpunk port for the next switch would be a better looking experience (combination of both iq and graphics) than the steam deck? Would rt be a possibility given amperes rt prowess?

Saskira

Howdy y'all (I've always wanted to say that), I hope things are ok. I've just heard that Nightdive Studios are going to remaster The Thing! That movie is awesome (so is Big Trouble in Little China by the way) but the game was one of my favourite back in the day but my PC wasn't the best back then, so it was rough going playing it. I was wondering what games you'd wish you played first on better hardware?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fortnight Gents. This week I've finally finished FF7 Rebirth and got a copy of Stellar Blade - something I was partly dissuaded from doing by the critic review scores. However, I then took a look at Metacritic, which shows the aggregate "meta"critic score and User Score and noticed something very odd - very rare... Normally the critic score is 10 or so points ahead of the user score. A quick look at any of the top 50 games shows that almost none have a user score that is higher than the critic score. The User score for Stellar Blade is (9.2) which ranks it at number 9 (out of ALL PS5 games), the Critic score (8.1) ranks it at 154. Even Ocarina of time - the no.1 ranked games across ALL platforms EVER - only has a user score of 9.1 ... Has Shift UP been robbed of much higher critic reviews (and sales hype) because they chose to have a character that is beautiful and moderately sexy? Is this how western reviewers greet a small Korean Development team? Don't you think we should call this out - the game is brilliant!; nay STELLAR!?

DaJaCo (Dan)

8k is a big jump in resolution, it's just that there are diminishing experiential returns at typical viewing distances vs 4k - but massive costs to rendering/processing - I think it will see a resurgence eventually - thanks to ever better upscaling technology. One purpose for which an 8K panel is very good - is plugging in a camera and viewing the pin sharp detail of stills from cameras 33MP and more. 4K is only 8 megapixels in a market where most cameras are 12 ~ 50MP.. of course this is a very niche application.

DaJaCo (Dan)

This is DIGITAL foundry, not Tangible Foundry, or Analogue Foundry - they do the opposite. They take real objects, throw them into the Digital Blast Furnace - and then hammer out the resulting digital doppelgangers; while the freshly forged bits and bytes cool down.

Gabriele Colombera

Hi DF! Have you heard about the Lossless Scaling Frame Generation (LSFG) app on Steam? The latest update, LSFG 2.1, claims it can now generate two intermediate frames, effectively tripling the framerate. How does LSFG fare in terms of frame generation quality? Would it be a good idea to create a video comparing it with DLSS and FSR? I haven't tried the app personally, but it seems interesting.

Critically Wild

My only question is whether we can call it the Summer Macro Blocking Fest? I've had YouTube Premium for 11 years, and they're getting crazy aggressive about bitrates — and they always, ALWAYS, default me to non-Premium 1080, when I always watch in 4K unless on phone. It's become ridiculous. I know livestreams are a different proposition, but the Summer Games Fest was streamed from, uh, the YOUTUBE theatre... and the post streams inherit the garbage. How do you guys even make reasonable assessments of this video vomit?

VeryProfessionalDodo

I would say it's the exact opposite! "Mob mentality" usually leads to review-bombing games on Metacritic, such as the Forbidden West expansion or The Last of Us Part 2. However, I believe that Stellar Blade has been "positively review bombed" by the sentiment of it being "anti-woke". It has an attractive female protagonist, you can choose revealing outfits, etc. I've seen a lot of Youtube thumbnails praising Shift Up's decisions, the same ones who complain about "wokeness" in videogames. This is not to discredit the game at all, I only played the demo, but even before the game launched I had the strong suspicion it was going to get very high user reviews, while having no idea what the critic consensus was about to be.

DaJaCo (Dan)

You might be right in this case - with respect to the user score - but the user scores dont drive sales like the major critics / review websites do, and they do not determine the ranking of the game on the individual review sites or on aggregators like metacritic.

Fabian Kaiser

There are extension like youtube auto hd + fps, I use it to always automatically set everything to maximum when on pc. you should try it!

Critically Wild

Thanks for the recommendation! It does it on TV and phone too... very frustrating since paying from day one. I set the preferred res and it ignores it.