RAM. I don’t play a huge
number of games and want to
run at least three monitors. It
needs to be fast and reliable.
I’ve always bought Intel, but
am now seeing mentions of
Intel CPU security flaws. I
still want Intel—I’ve been
thinking about the i9-9900K—
but is there anything to worry
about security-wise? –Larry
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: All
Intel chips—including the
latest 9th-gen line—suffer
from the same vulnerabilities
collectively referred to as
Spectre and Meltdown. The
biggest difference between
the 9xxx line and 8xxx line
is that some of the patches
designed to fix these holes
have been implemented at
the hardware level—in other
words, they’re on the chip,
so don’t require a microcode
update distributed via BIOS or
OS updates.
This means the i9-9900k
suffers from the same issues
as previous generations, but
the holes have been patched.
The Doc reckons you’re safe
enough with this chip, but if
you’re still squeamish, the
closest AMD equivalent is the
Ryzen 9 3900X, which even
outperforms the i9-9900K
in several benchmarks. Pair
it with an X570 board like
the ASRock X570 Taichi (see
Oct 2019 issue, pg. 83).
If you’re looking for a
cost-effective GPU to power
three or more monitors, we
recommend the Zotac Gaming
GeForce GTX 1660 6GB, which
boasts three DisplayPorts and
one HDMI port, all of which
can be used simultaneously.
Restore Aero Glass
I’m getting ready to update
both my and three friends’
computers to Windows 10,
and was wondering if the
mods in Nick Peers’ article
“60 Ways to Customize
Windows” (Sept 2019 issue)
need to be reinstalled when
Windows 10 does a major
update—in particular, Ultimate
Windows Tweaker, Winaero
Tweaker, and Aero Glass for
Windows 8. –John Hau
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: If
you were upgrading from one
Windows 10 build to another,
the likelihood is at least some
of your tweaks would stay in
place (but not all, because
often these tweak tools
restore deprecated features
that are removed from future
builds). That’s the case with
the tweaks offered by UWT
and Winaero Tweaker—open
both tools after upgrading
and verify which settings have
been kept and which ones
need reapplying again.
In the case of Aero Glass,
it will stop working after
the upgrade. You’ll need to
download and install the
latest version of Aero Glass
for Win 8.1+ from https://
glass8.eu/download, which
is compatible with all builds
of Windows 10 up to 1903. We
wonder why Nick wasn’t able
to get it to work—the Doc had
it up and running first time,
although it did throw up a
compatibility error (while still
working). Download, unzip
(use 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.
org), and run the “Testing
version of GUI application”
from the same link to tweak
its settings—the 100 percent
transparency on the title bars
renders them almost invisible.Serving Minecraft
I know: Minecraft? I’ve been a
gamer since the early 1980s,
and my kids played Minecraft
when it first came out. This
summer, I finally tried it for
myself and surprisingly liked
it. My kids—all now young
adults—still play, but many
of them are only on Xbox. I
was searching on the Internetfor a way to connect an Xbox
to a remote PC Minecraft
(bedrock) server and found
a solution on YouTube that
requires a PC to be set up on
the same LAN as each Xbox
so it can connect to remote
Minecraft servers.
So, simple question:
What’s the minimum (i.e.,
least expensive) build and OS
that I would need? It must be
always-on and would be nice
to set it up to automatically
reboot and restart the
program (Phantom) after a
power loss. Thanks for your
wisdom. –Thomas EddyTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The
solution you’ve uncovered—
Phantom (https://github.com/
jhead/phantom/releases)—is
designed to act purely as
a proxy to allow Xboxes on
remote networks to connect
to each other through a single
server of your choice (which
can be a Microsoft-hosted
service or a custom-built
server on your own PC). That
means you need to distribute
one Phantom proxy to each
family member who needs
it. The good news is that not
only does Phantom support
Windows, Mac, and Linux, but
there are also builds for the
Raspberry Pi. You should be
able to run it merrily on a Pi 3
(around $50, including case
and PSU), but it’ll run on any
older laptop or desktop, too.
The following covers
setting up Phantom on a
Raspberry Pi. Once the basics
are installed and configured
(use the Terminal in Raspbian
or simply install Raspbian Lite
for exclusive command-lineusage), you must issue the
following commands:
$ wget https://github.com/
jhead/phantom/releases/
download/v0.2.0/phantom-
linux-arm7
$ chmod u+x ./phantom-
linux-arm7
Technically, you can now
manually run the proxy using
the following command:
$ ./phantom-linux-arm7
-server FallenTech.tk:19132
Obviously, substitute
“FallenTech.tk” with your
choice of server (see https://
minecraftpocket-servers.com
for inspiration). You should see
confirmation that the proxy
connection has been made,
and it’ll hold until you close the
Terminal window.
What you want, of course,
is something that will run in
the background and respawn
automatically on a reboot.
There are several ways to do
this—the simplest is to edit
the “rc.local” file:
$ sudo nano /etc/rc.local
Remove everything
between “#Print the IP
address” and “exit 0” lines,
then insert the following line
in their place, above “exit 0”:
home/pi/phantom-linux-arm7
-server FallenTech.tk:19132
Press Ctrl-X, then press
Y followed by Enter to save
your modified “rc.local” file.
Next, you need to make the
“rc.local” file executable, so it
starts on bootup:
$ sudo chmod a+x /etc/
rc.local
Reboot your Pi and that’s
it—to verify the proxy is
running, open another
Terminal window and issue
this command:
$ ps aux | grep phantom
If it’s running, you should
see an entry for “phantom-
linux-arm7” assigned to root,
indicating it’s ready to act as
a proxy server for the Xboxes
on your local network. You can
now unplug it from monitor,
keyboard, and mouse, and
leave it to its own devices.
To administer it remotely,
use “sudo raspi-config” and
go to “Interfacing Options,”
selecting “SSH” and choosing
“Yes > OK > Finish.”Connect Xboxes to remote Minecraft servers with the help of Phantom.maximumpc.com DEC 2019 MAXIMUMPC 23