so i got a steam deck (i wanted one for a while & the threat of them running out of DRAM because of AI demand is looming)

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@promovicz it is in fact export-controlled and has been for as long as i've been using it

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

it needed some convincing but it runs!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

now for the real test of steam deck's utility: how fast can it pnr

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@whitequark I would never

[r@glauca.space]

@whitequark according to one benchmark, it has some strange CPU memory bandwidth issues ( https://chipsandcheese.com/p/van-gogh-amds-steam-deck-apu )

but overall still performs quite well for the "ultra-mobile" (do they still use that term?) device class. doesn't throttle for no reason, for one

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

despite having only 88 GB/s of memory bandwidth (https://glauca.space/@r/116126575467566538) it seems to be... okay? oddly it appears much slower to do synthesis than pnr on their or1200 demo project, which is not the way it usually goes

[olasd@mastodon.opportunis.me]

@whitequark don't forget the FPS (Flipflops Per Second) overlay

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

do you think this is the first bitstream synthesized on a steam deck?

[r@glauca.space]

@whitequark no we did quite a few already (might be the first with vivado tho)

hey it's faster than qemu on M1

[lomon@infosec.exchange]

@whitequark I know it's not hehe.
A friend uses he's as a laptop and installed he's work toolchain for the sake of it. Told me that was unusable though.
I also installed ghidra on the same device for a ctf where that was the only computer I could get re was eye stressing to say the least...

[tonyg@pubsub.leastfixedpoint.com]

@whitequark The first bitsteam (I can't help myself, it started when I had a kid, I'm so sorry)

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@tonyg amazing

[pikhq@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark agreed. it is very good at what it is designed for, and also works quite well in other uses like, y'know, desktop linux. i've loved mine and every other steam deck alike, which just run windows with An Application on top, make me sad

[pikhq@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark and of course, as a gaming device it's still more pleasant than other "more powerful" things because they optimized for the power and thermal budget a literal handheld has? it does 720p but that's fine, guess what the screen is

[ladytel@masto.hackers.town]

@whitequark the thing I love about my steam deck is they're like "hey there's a full ass desktop environment and it's Linux so your hardware do what you want"

I respect that design choice

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@ladytel yeah it's excellent

[thezoq2@mastodon.social]

@whitequark Catherine NO!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@thezoq2 too late

[julius@layer8.space]

@whitequark Downloading Vivado via Steam must be a huge improvement. Do they have DLCs?

[krutonium@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark FWIW: The memory is slightly underclocked by default; You can speed it up quite a bit with some firmware tweaking, which amounts to loading an alternative GUI to change the CMOS settings.

IIRC it runs slower because some early on models of the Deck were unstable at the higher clocks and they never adjusted it back up.