California to ban selling new gas-powered cars by 2035

[freebeard]

Raspberry Pi shouldn't be affected.... These computers have to use very little electricity compared to the rest or they can't be sold.

Maybe a bare board that ships with a case (some assembly required) is all it takes to humiliate bureaucrats? 80% lowers all over again.

I talked to my son. I'd thought all that graphics power was to drive a set resolution in pixels and all you get is the protagonist's shirt sleeves fluttering in the breeze. But he said the one 4K monitor at 60 frames per second or two at 30 is pathetic. Gamers want 120 frame per second.

We left it at where thin clients and cloud computation fall is over last mile latency problems. I think that's only one thing that Starlink will disrupt.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr -- it's a single-board SOC (System on chip). It comes in different flavors like the Pi Zero, and you can install a headless OS for Internet of Thingies.

The Pi 4b is about the size of a deck of cards. I printed out this bracket to put mine on the wall next to my desk.



www.thingiverse.com/thing:4908608

You can get cases that look like the Death Star or a functional octopod robot.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I talked to my son. I'd thought all that graphics power was to drive a set resolution in pixels and all you get is the protagonist's shirt sleeves fluttering in the breeze.

UHD (4K) resolution at 120Hz is becoming pretty common, mainly because of hype. And again, you can get computers that will game like that in California.

For a person who knows more about how people see things, UHD (4K) is a joke for the most part. When sitting at a comfortable distance from a screen most people can't tell the difference between HD (720P) and FHD (1080P) let alone the difference between FHD (1080P) and UHD (4K). It's much better to game at a higher frame rate but lower resolution than a higher resolution and lower frame rate.

4K might make sense as a computer resolution where you got to lean in and see some small detail from time to time. Or maybe a cell phone in split screen mode with the screen 6 inches from your face.

Frame rates above 120Hz also don't do much to improve the experience. 60Hz to 120Hz is noticeable. 120Hz to 240Hz is hard to tell the difference. There are some screens with frame rates as high as 500Hz.

As many gamers have found out, the best gaming screens were the old VGA style tube CRT monitors. Those could do FHD (1080p) and frame rates of up to 120Hz, but without the motion blur problems of LCD (or LED) and OLED screens. LCD will always have pixel response lag as LCD can't change instantly. And even OLED suffers without significant BFI (black frame insertion). Basically the pixels on OLEDS and LCD screens just change colors without going to black making a moving image blur as the eye sees the object here and then there as one big blur. BFI helps by adding a black frame in between but also makes the screen much darker and still isn't great because the blacking may only be about 50% of the time Old fashion CRT's didn't do that since the pixels were black most of the time and lit up only brefely making the blacking more like 99% (or better) of the time.

[ME_Andy]

The spirit of the law makes sense but it seems a little too nitpicky. Like, what if California started to regulate the power draws of electric toothbrushes next? I could actually imagine that.

I would say that a better way to discourage power consumption is to increase prices, but they're already high in CA.

[freebeard]

Low power requirement suggests a retina display wearable. A room full of people could watch a virtual movie screen, each with their individual point of view.

While we wait for Neuralink.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by ME_Andy

The spirit of the law makes sense but it seems a little too nitpicky. Like, what if California started to regulate the power draws of electric toothbrushes next? I could actually imagine that.

I would say that a better way to discourage power consumption is to increase prices, but they're already high in CA.

That may be true.

On the other hand, computers have slowly been becoming more and more power hungery over the years. Back in the good ol' days of the first home computers in the 70's, less than 100 watts was quite common (IIRC). Now there are PC's people are buying that need over 1,000W to run. I actually have a computer with a 1,400W PSU. To go any higher I'll need a 20 amp outlet. Maybe make that a 30 amp outlet.

While we're on the subject of gaming power the most power efficient route would be to get into retro games and play them on hardware based systems, either original 8 bit or 16 bit consoles or computers, or on FPGA's (field programable gate arrays like the MiSTer project). (In other words, avoid emulation).

[freebeard]

Back in the good ol' days of the first home computers in the 70's, less than 100 watts was quite common (IIRC).

512K Macintosh Max Watts: 60 / Amps: .5 / BTU per Hr: 205.2

About as much power as a 60 watt light bulb, and maybe the light of a 15 Watt light bulb.

....retro games and play them on hardware based systems

RetroPie - Retro-gaming on the Raspberry Pi
https://retropie.org.uk
Welcome to RetroPie. RetroPie allows you to turn your Raspberry Pi, ODroid C1/C2, or PC into a retro-gaming machine. It builds upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch and many other projects to enable you to play your favourite Arcade, home-console, and classic PC games with the minimum set-up.

https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q...&sort=relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voZE2_1uBWg

edit:
mini Commodore PET! + A brief history of PETs!

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

512K Macintosh Max Watts: 60 / Amps: .5 / BTU per Hr: 205.2

About as much power as a 60 watt light bulb, and maybe the light of a 15 Watt light bulb.

You can also tell that older systems didn't need near as much power due to the fact that a cooling system (heat syncs and fans) wasn't even needed.

Now compare those old computers to this article that discuses what PSU (Power Supply Unit) to get when building a PC. (Prefabricated Gaming PC's aren't much different)

[URL="https://www.windowscentral.com/1000w-vs-850w-vs-500w-power-supply"]1000W vs. 850W vs. 500W power supply: Which PSU will you need | Windows Central[URL]

It even discuses PSU's clear up to 1800W! At the rate we're going we'll need 2kW, then 3kW, then 5kW then 7kW power connections just to hook up gaming, workstation and rendering PC's! That's as much as a Level 2 EVSE!

[ME_Andy]

That's wild. I have a high end laptop that can run just about anything within reason and its power supply is only 240W. I guess people are always taking things to extremes.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by ME_Andy

That's wild. I have a high end laptop that can run just about anything within reason and its power supply is only 240W. I guess people are always taking things to extremes.

Yes! And laptops are a prime example of how much energy can be saved. They're usually a little less powerful as far as processing goes than an "equivalent" tower PC, yet they use half the electricity or less. They still use a lot more than they did years ago.

However, even ultra efficient systems can easily meet the demands of the general public and casual gamers. Apple is proving this with their M1 chips. I also have a Surface Go that averages only 4.1W of power. And yet I can hook up two more monitors (three total) all the extra peripherals I need (scanner, printer, Blu-ray burner/reader, etc) and play really nice looking popular 3D games (Portal 2 for an example), all at the same time!

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

As many gamers have found out, the best gaming screens were the old VGA style tube CRT monitors.

Not only for gaming. I still had a 5.5" black-and-white TV at home until 2 years ago, just got rid of it because it was nearly impossible to find a replacement part it required.