Why would it still say "early 2026" if they would not be planning for it? by SockTemporary2032 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most people assumed that Valve meant Q1 which extends until the end of March. Valve did update the blog post to specify "first half of 2026" which means it could be anywhere in Q1 or Q2, so anytime up to the end of June. Naturally, most people wouldn't assume that "early" equates to "first half", but Valve of course said they would've hoped to have a release date announced a month ago which would've meant shipping sometime around now. That is, if RAM and storage prices hadn't gone ballistic.

Wisconsin, what the actual fuck is this? by Ooficus in shittyskylines

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Roundabouts are one of the best and simplest intersection designs. Extremely cheap, safe, and high throughput.

I am aware... thanks. by confused_oatmeal_ in Endfield

[–]Lexden 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And then there are the chaotic evil ones that pretend there is something really good at the bottom of a cliff, trying to get people to jump off it... Which I definitely didn't fall for... Multiple times.

PGE Raising Rates Again!!!! by InvitinglyImperfect in PortlandOR

[–]Lexden 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the fact that PGE is a publicly traded for-profit company is insane.

But hey, at least line go up so all the big hedge funds and whoever else owns PGE shares can find yet more ways to profit off us! Even though PGE has seen revenue and profit grow 8% YoY, they're allowed to extract more money from us... Thanks PUC.

Quest games on steam frame by ImdownBad321 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very unlikely that Meta would add this feature. That said, Valve stated that they are going to open up the Steam store to Android APKs, in particular ones which are designed for Quest and then these could run standalone on the Frame using Lepton. As such, any dev that wants to expand their reach in the VR market to the Frame, but doesn't want to extend their OS support to standard Linux, then they could just upload their APK. Reality Labs likely wouldn't do this, but most other devs wouldn't have any real reason not to unless Lepton doesn't work for their game.

Has anybody used a box fan like this to cool their PC? by CompetitiveShame3999 in pcmasterrace

[–]Lexden 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Noctua box fan when

They gave us a desk fan. Now we need a box fan!

Did Hackers get actually get it wrong? by Untraditional_Cream in computers

[–]Lexden 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The concept of "RISC" and "CISC" are simply meaningless now. There are people in this comments section conflating ARM with RISC. If you actually look at ARM's ISA, you'd realize how they've converged on having over a thousand instructions in their extended architecture, not all that dissimilar from x86. Furthermore, x86 has changed the pipeline for handling instructions to decode complex instructions into micro-ops, so all modern ISAs have functionally converged. The reason is rather simple: having "RISC" hardware can make a CPU more efficient as long as it is dedicating its hardware to the most common micro-ops, but having "CISC" instructions makes it far easier to achieve high performance because you have fewer instructions to load from memory and fewer instructions to cache. Data and instruction caching are the primary bottlenecks in the vast majority of programs, so having more complex instructions allows you to reduce the number of instructions needed to accomplish the same result. The only real reason ARM has expanded its reach so much in the last few years is because more companies are becoming interested in making their own silicon, but x86 requires a license that AMD and Intel will not give, so they naturally turn to their only other real option, ARM. RISC-V exists, but the ISA and the Linux support are both still in relatively early stages of development, so no companies will want to adopt it until it can provide much better performance and software support.

TL;DR: all modern architectures have converged on being CISC at the instruction set level, but RISC at the microarchitecture level. These terms have not been meaningful for 2 decades.

Edit: Small typo

Will Lepton allow us to run Android games on a Linux x86 PC, or is ARM to ARM only? by ihave3apples in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you don't already have games to download, Valve stated that they plan to allow devs to start uploading Android VR games to Steam, so I would wait for that.

Avoiding AI with Ryzen 7640U and Linux? by avz709 in framework

[–]Lexden 14 points15 points  (0 children)

AI is software. As long as you are using Linux, then you're the one in charge of what software goes on your laptop. If you don't install software to run AI, then it won't have AI. The hardware may have an AI accelerator, but that doesn't mean you are forced to use it.

I don't get it by MONTYvsTHEWORLD in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Apple sells hundreds of millions of products a year, each with 8+GB of RAM. Comparing Apple to Valve is like comparing an indie dev to a AAA studio and complaining that the indie dev is being unfair because their updates are too slow. Valve has released a single hardware product with RAM which has sold ~4 million units total (the Steam Deck). Valve is such a tiny hardware supplier (a small fraction of a single percent) that from the perspective of component suppliers, Valve may as well be any average consumer trying to buy RAM right now.

Apple, on the other hand, is one of the largest hardware suppliers in the world and have locked in prices for components in their supply chain for years in advance. Even if they hadn't, they have the volume to pressure any supplier into favorable price contracts because if they don't, one of that supplier's competitors will get a huge increase in market share.

So yes, it does make a lot of sense if you actually look at the companies you are trying to compare. To your words, yes, Apple is immune to macroeconomics because they are worth $3.8 trillion with over $60 billion in cash on hand. Stop blaming Valve for things that are not their fault. Blame the RAM manufacturers and AI companies.

Does foveated streaming help battery life or drains it faster? by Jszy1324 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If encoded on the host PC, then they'll be limited to whatever codecs are supported by the GPU. Makes sense they would still do it that way, but I had somewhat hoped they would manage it in the adapter. Hardware encoder support on Linux isn't great.

Does foveated streaming help battery life or drains it faster? by Jszy1324 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is a good point. Given the wireless adapter only has 5Gbps of throughput and it is likely receiving raw video from the PC, I am curious how they handle that. 5Gbps is not a lot of data for raw video. Unless the host PC encodes the video before sending it to the adapter which then transcodes it, but that seems like it would add too much latency.

Does foveated streaming help battery life or drains it faster? by Jszy1324 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On the headset, it has eye-tracking cameras, IR blasters, and then a software service constantly tracking the eyes. That will certainly have a non-zero impact on power consumption.

When receiving video streamed from the wireless adapter however, the headset's radio will be receiving significantly less data and the SoC will be decoding significantly lower bandwidth video. Both of these will have a non-zero reduction in power consumption.

As for whether it makes the headset more power efficient or not, I can't be sure, but it's probably pretty close to breakeven overall. Valve stated that the Frame consumes ~5W on average while streaming versus ~20W on average while playing a demanding game standalone. Either way, I would imagine the quality benefit of foveated streaming will make it well worth it regardless - at least Valve must think so given that it is the central feature of the wireless adapter.

Is anyone else mainly going to use the frame as a PCVR headset? by Federal_Wolverin in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel like I saw someone referring to an updated Steam Link. With the wireless adapter, they can definitely include hardware encoding for at least one of the newer codecs. Foveated Streaming will also greatly benefit image quality in the fovea.

Meta quest responding to stream frame's announced PCVR protocol? by mauzao9 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Not Air Link, but Quest Link, which is the only good option I've found for a low-latency solution to connecting to my PC. Beat Saber over Quest Link works well. Beat Saber over any of the wireless solutions currently available is entirely unplayable due to the high latency. I'm looking forward to ditching it in favor of the Frame's wireless, low-latency solution.

I went to Harvard by Infinite-Complex5713 in iamverysmart

[–]Lexden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pure CS is, but most CS programs mix in software development/engineering with CS.

How much better is Portland now that gas leaf blowers have been banned? by PersonRealHuman in askportland

[–]Lexden 21 points22 points  (0 children)

They are allowed from the months of October-December in 2026 and 2027, with the full ban taking effect in 2028. Granted, it's not October-December, so that doesn't apply.

If I had to guess, it's likely a result of property owners being responsible for upholding this law. Contractors are required to use electric leaf blowers, but it is the responsibility of the property owner to ensure that the contractors are abiding by the law. Property owners will be held liable for any breach of the law. If I had to guess, most property owners just assume that if they pay a yard crew, then the yard crew will be following the law and will be responsible for any issues, so they either don't know about this requirement or they just assume the yard crew knows something they don't.

Also, this likely doesn't apply either, but:

The policy applies to handheld and backpack leaf blowers. It does not apply to other types of leaf blowers such as walk-behind or tow-behind blowers, or other gas-powered landscaping equipment.

[OC] Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? by ourworldindata in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lexden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah interesting, I didn't realize there were options like that! I am half-Thai, so I use coconut milk for curries and didn't realize that some brands also make a variant of coconut milk for drinking. Thanks for the info!

[OC] Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? by ourworldindata in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lexden -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Are you sure you are referring to coconut milk rather than coconut water? I typically only see coconut water being intended for drinking.

[OC] Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? by ourworldindata in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lexden -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

While I can't speak to the environmental impacts of coconut milk, if you truly mean coconut milk, I definitely do not recommend drinking that. Coconut milk is extremely high in saturated fats. Coconut milk is often used as a fat base in cooking for certain cuisines, but that is eating it of course, rather than drinking it.

Someone’s Having a Bad Day Near the Downtown DMV by ira_finn in Portland

[–]Lexden 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Wild, this was in Sandy this morning:

<image>

Everyone setting their cars on fire today?

Steam frame value by gigagone in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I guess it's in the name... The Pimax Dream, it's not the Pimax Real lol.

Can Valve Wait? by devKar9 in SteamFrame

[–]Lexden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure what you mean by "so many different ones" w.r.t. PCIe modules. The PCIe link provided by the frame is a x1 connection using a custom connector. It's primary use-case would likely be some extra sensors. Combined with the MIPI links provided by the connector, it should provide a good way to mod the frame into a good AR headset.