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Latest Comments by Samsai
Hogwarts Legacy to be Steam Deck Verified at launch
13 January 2023 at 3:26 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: ScytaleRollings is an old school feminists and feels threatened, that something on scientifically very thin ice could (or a very young trend, or at least not as well researched until now) undermine women's rights.
Scientifically on very thin ice according to whom? Medical consensus across numerous studies shows that gender affirming care has better outcomes than the alternatives. If JKR thinks so, she's hardly an subject matter expert with her BA. And this idea that bigotry is justified because we should entertain baseless, hypothetical threats to women's rights is ridiculous. If I went on a campaign against washing your hands because washing your hands could undermine women's rights, should I really be given the benefit of the doubt?

NVIDIA "unlaunching" the RTX 4080 12GB, apparently 4090 Ti cancelled due to melting
16 October 2022 at 2:08 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: Renzatic Gear
Quoting: SamsaiYeah, we are at the point where it would be better to have cooler and smaller stuff, yet as nanometers go smaller, the gaming systems slowly turn into watercooled mainframes that eat as much electricity as small villages

Hey, comeon now. There's no reason to over-exaggerate here. It doesn't require as much electricity as a small village. It uses, maybe, enough energy to power 4 washer/dryer combos, max.

That's barely even half of a small village.
Depends on the village. Some villages wish they had 4 washer/drier combos worth of electronics.

NVIDIA "unlaunching" the RTX 4080 12GB, apparently 4090 Ti cancelled due to melting
16 October 2022 at 10:06 am UTC Likes: 14

If they are pushing the silicon so hard that the cards start melting, maybe they are due for a big rethink. The 4080 already has a stock TDP of 320 W (and we know the card vendors will try to push it if they can) and that would never fly for me, too hot, too costly, too loud.

A Robot Named Fight! source code released
12 October 2022 at 12:58 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: ShabbyXPretty sure can't license code written against unity as GPL. That would require unity's code itself to be GPL-compatible.
I don't think so. The GPL license requires derivative code to be licensed under GPL, and obviously Unity is not derivative work, more like the opposite. It should be possible for you to write a GPL'd piece of code that plugs into a non-GPL system and still enforce all the requirements of GPL when it comes to your code. Obviously you cannot enforce them on the whole system.

Google gives up on Stadia, will offer refunds on games and hardware
29 September 2022 at 8:25 pm UTC Likes: 2

So long, hope we never meet again!

Isonzo is a new WW1 FPS from the dev of Verdun out now
14 September 2022 at 5:51 pm UTC Likes: 7

I have barely scratched the surface of Isonzo, but I think some people are being really quite unfair to the developers. Verdun and Tannenberg play out quite differently from one another and Isonzo seems to change up the formula again, so it's not like they are just releasing the same game with new maps. The main gameplay objectives have changed between all three games and the maps work very differently.

Also, it's not like the developers just release a game then then immediately move onto the next. Verdun came out of early access in 2015, Tannenberg released out of early access in 2019. Both games received some updates along the way, although Verdun obviously got more content updates. This would be an entirely ordinary release cadence for shooter franchise.

Distrobox can open up the Steam Deck to a whole new world
12 September 2022 at 5:35 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: anewsonhow does this work? their website says it uses docker, but how does docker 'change' the kernel? WITCHCRAFT!
The simple answer is that it doesn't. All that containerized software runs on top of the existing kernel.

Devs are discovering the Steam Deck is good for making games too
15 July 2022 at 1:12 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: eldarionIt does matter because it's a machine manufactured by them. It's not a standard PC that obey to industry standards. You are locked by the platform. Yes, it is basically a micro PC, but like I said previously, you can't do most of the things, hardware wise, that you can do with your standard PC. And like i said, if Valve discontinues the product, you are frocked because now you have system that has a slim chance of being properly upgraded. This does not happen if you buy a PC from system76, for instance.

"I don't think people are suggesting that the Deck is a desktop workstation"

I think Liam mentioned it. Hence my reply.
It's the exact same story if you buy a non-upgradeable laptop with soldered RAM and eMMC storage. So once again, it being a Valve device has no bearing on this argument. You could make an argument that people should consider upgradeability and repairability when buying their devices, but that's a different argument to the one you made. And as far as mobile devices go, they typically are not particularly upgradeable apart from maybe RAM and storage, yet they are still considered useful enough that many people opt for them instead of full ATX towers where you can ship of Theseus your way through a decade or more of upgrades.

Also, no, Liam did not suggest that the deck is a desktop workstation. He said it's a pretty good PC and more powerful than some PCs devs have used to make games, which is accurate because it has about the same specs as a generic laptop. It comes with many of the drawbacks of laptops and some additional drawbacks of its own, but the form-factor also has some potential benefits for certain use cases.

Devs are discovering the Steam Deck is good for making games too
14 July 2022 at 4:59 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: eldarionI would not recommend anyone to use steam deck as a desktop PC unless you are aware of it's limitations. It's a Valve product, a Valve machine. You are limited to what Valve says you can do with it. Want to expand the memory? Only if they allow it. Disk space? The same. Video card? Good luck. What to change the OS distro? Yeah... About that....

The product can also be discontinued, and that is another headache.

No, i would not recommend it at all.
Having more and more people to use Linux as a desktop is the wet dream of us all, but we need to be careful on what we recommend people to use.
I don't see how it being a Valve product makes it really that much more different than a number of products from other manufacturers, System76 included. If you try to swap out parts or the OS, I don't think you are going to run into limitations put there by Valve. You'll likely void your warranty, but that's basically what happens when you crack open any laptop too. The Deck is basically just a PC in a funny form-factor after all.

I don't think people are suggesting that the Deck is a desktop workstation and it definitely won't be as upgradable as one, but it is clearly about as capable as a generic laptop and probably quite usable for all sorts of light productivity tasks you'd want to throw at it if you couple it with a display, keyboard and mouse.

Devs are discovering the Steam Deck is good for making games too
13 July 2022 at 2:47 pm UTC

In addition to these all-in-one game engine solutions it would also be possible to do some more general software development on a Deck without even needing to unlock it into developer mode. Flathub has code editors and a number SDK extensions you can install, so you could work on Rust or JS projects for example. For example basically my entire development environment would be transferable quite easily to the Deck, since I already run Emacs in Flatpak and use for example the Rust through a Flatpak SDK extension.

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