Valve massively raised the prices for the Steam Deck:

[moppi@chaos.social]

@manawyrm @grutzifix @masek

I will rent you you a Virtual PC ... But you musst every day lick my ass and when you wrote a Single word what i not like, will cancel your contract and Delete All Your data

Best Future for the new Technical-Overlords

[jnk@masto.es]

@alpacamale @masek Mario Galaxy is still the GOAT and both games just got remastered for the switch so...

[manawyrm@chaos.social]

@moppi @grutzifix @masek

[yuman@defcon.social]

@masek

don't wanna start nothing, but the thing was obsolete when it was introed - AMD APU that has trouble keeping up with 720p gaming and was never upgraded. paying even *half* of that *four* years later is bonkers.

for a *tenth* of its price you can cobble together a super-powerful desktop (comparatively speaking) and use any $20 mobile device to remotely play on it, by way of moonshine et al.

this post brought to you by a 2009 i7-860 and 2017 RX 580.

#permacomputing

[bolomkxxviii@mastodon.social]

@masek
I recently purchased a used business PC from eBay. 12th gen Core i5, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, integrated graphics, for $200. Not a gaming rig, but I am not a gamer. This should keep me going for everything else I need a computer for until prices drop/the AI bubble bursts.

[leberschnitzel@existiert.ch]

@masek sorry I should have used your full quote, because that's exactly what I disagree with
I agree that the development will change and "games that might have existed will look different or not exist", but "gaming *as we know* it" will stay the same. It might not get higher fidelity anymore, although we see with mobile gaming and Nintendo that this never mattered as much. And those two encapsulate a gigantic majority of gamers.

[neutronstar@infosec.exchange]

@masek
Already used to this, my laptop is 14 years old. I got it preowned from a relative who needed newer hardware and I could use it instead. But my dream of owning my own gaming pc is moving farther and farther away… :[

[einalex@chaos.social]

@masek why?

@grutzifix

[darcmoughty@infosec.exchange]

@Robbes0211 @masek unpopular opinion:

PC processors and GPUs have been good enough for years and the development slowdown/longer cycles aren't a bad thing. Games are not bound by the limitations of a mid-range CPU or GPU now, the choices the developer makes are much more impactful.

I use 4-8 year old hardware and barely notice the difference between it and the latest. My son has a fantastic gaming experience on a PC with similar specs to a Steam Machine Mk2.

Yes, the AI effects on the market suck, but the gamer culture of always wanting to build beefier rigs was getting toxically absurd and pointless. We don't need to double specs at the edge every two years anymore; we shouldn't even want to.

I feel the same way about the processing power in PCs. We just don't need office computers to have 32GB RAM and terabytes of fast storage. That stuff is fun, but what we need is for developers to target operating systems and software at reasonable levels and stop expecting the installed edge to ride Moore's Law forever.

[krans@mastodon.me.uk]

@yuman How well does your $20 mobile device work for 14.5 hr intercontinental flights?

Yes, my Steam Deck isn't a powerful gaming machine but *that's not what it's for*

@masek

[svelmoe@hachyderm.io]

@masek Glad I bought one (that I currently dont use much) about half a year ago.

Unfortunately, I was also considering to buy a new PC back then, but delayed the decision.
Now that's delayed for quite a while at least.

[ferricoxide@blahaj.zone]

@masek@infosec.exchange

One way or the other, we're fucked:

* If the AI bubble bursts, the economy will be left in shambles
* If it doesn't burst, nobody will be able to afford devices

Even if the goal is "run everything in the cloude" (though AWS killing Luna and Google previously killing Stadia, that seems no longer viable), you still need a device with enough local RAM and rendering-capability to act as a cloud-gaming client.

[quarterswede@mastodon.social]

@DarcMoughty @Robbes0211 @masek Agreed on the gamer take. My m4 mini rocks most games in even Crossover just fine.

But some office computers absolutely need RAM. One of our main systems is browser based and eats RAM alive. This is a major industry customer CRM, nothing crazy. It should probably be a much more efficient app but that wouldn’t be as updateable for them nor run on any OS so RAM is crucial for a smooth operation. All of our laptops have 32GB RAM to keep them going at full speed.

[splinux@mastodon.uno]

@masek why? there will be more sensible and national security aware supply chaina. China can't produce yet what is being bought up by Datacenters (their own too). BUT they will and there will be a demand destruction by oversupply following a starvation... like Hormuz and most economies around the world will go back to the stone age if they don't ease up in few months.

There will be a sdram national memory company that goes IPO in Shanghai, it will look like a missile in the chart imo.

[syllopsium@peoplemaking.games]

@masek I was going to say 'that's ridiculous' but the price of a 1TB SN850X has gone from $60 (2023) to $273 (February, currently $222), ~$200 difference. I suppose other components have gone up too. It still seems damned expensive though, as they will get economies of scale

Very glad I bought a 4070 Super last year, and a second hand ten year old workstation with lots of memory to test things on.

[_ryekdarkener_@mastodon.social]

@masek

However the actual hardware in use is good enough for further software development for the next years, as it is massively oversized. Fixit becoming a major player is not a bad thing. And letting China taking over the hardware delivery in the next years is a political decision we are making by voting for politics which is far from society orientation.
As always we will get what the democratic majority votes for.

[jessienab@wetdry.world]

@ascii158 LUCKY! The wii is surprisingly expensive 2nd hand these days... must be folks picking up "retro" consoles

[jessienab@wetdry.world]

@BoloMKXXVIII you could also hook up an external GPU , if the motherboard supports it.

[darcmoughty@infosec.exchange]

@quarterswede @Robbes0211 @masek I know a lot of apps are inefficient, but what I'm saying is that the app you mention should be reworked so it doesn't just gobble what is now a precious resource. Office endpoints shouldn't need 32GB RAM the same way a good looking video game shouldn't need a $400 GPU. Windows shouldn't eat 10GB just to get to the desktop.

I'm normally in favor of the march of progress and an understanding that newer things are bigger, but several things have changed in the last five years that should have us re-examining our traditional patterns. I don't think the things operating system and app developers are delivering by targeting larger systems are... actually in anyone's best interest.

[bolomkxxviii@mastodon.social]

@jessienab not a gamer, so not an issue.