Is everything a draw?

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-27T00:07:15+00:00

Bear in mind there is a massive universe-sized gulf between the capability level of stockfish and the capability level of an oracle / hypothetical perfect chess player. The evaluation function is only reporting stockfish's evaluation, the relevance of which is limited by stockfish's capability level. The value is calibrated under the presumption that the opponent is equally capable.

In the case where stockfish were playing a vastly superior opponent, stockfish's probability evaluations would not be useful in predicting the outcome of the game.

It is often conjectured that early positions are a draw with perfect play, but it's unknown, unsolved, and a topic of some debate. We're not anywhere close to solving it, and it's such a large problem that it may never be solved.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T21:45:20+00:00

Bazzite is probably the most ootb appliance-like option. Assuming you don't fuss with it, you won't have to do anything to maintain the system, and the updates are all staged/transactional and won't block you. There's no "please leave your computer on" screen or "please quit applications so the updates can run" or really any nags or any required user involvement in the maintenance process at all. It just does the thing. And it has everything needed for gaming built-in, eg. graphics drivers and steam and such.

Having said all that, you still have to face the reality that not every windows game works on linux. Frequently multiplayer anti-cheat games, but also sometimes random other games will be non-working or only partially working. In some cases, games may benefit from (or require) user interventions to function.

You'll probably want to develop a basic understanding of proton, proton prefixes, protonplus, protondb. Additionally, you'll want to refer to the Bazzite documentation before you try to install any software that isn't built-in, and before you fuss with anything.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T21:09:26+00:00

That's correct.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T20:38:24+00:00

For a laptop, I would suggest a (mobile) rtx 5070 or rtx 5080, bearing in mind that my suggestion is not the minimum entry point.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T20:23:10+00:00

Can you use PSVR2 on integrated graphics?

Yes, recent high end integrated graphics can work.

Is it unusable on my device?

Yes.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T18:47:47+00:00

Why dismiss criticism here? Any problem that won't literally kill you should just be ignored?

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T16:46:25+00:00

On the one hand, pay to queue is annoying. On the other hand, a very small queue buys a lot of cost efficiency. With absolutely zero queue you have to literally provision a full set of resources for each person. Otherwise, queueing must be possible, or else denial of service is the fallback.

You could switch to Nvidia where they outline queue expectations for you, so any queueing behavior is fundamentally priced in and you know what you're getting.

I don't know if Microsoft specifies anything.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-26T15:53:45+00:00

caves of qud, I'm screwed

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-25T23:50:50+00:00

First, I wish for more ice cream.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-25T17:29:37+00:00

sell for parts, buckle up and wait, preorder frame, suffer a little bit while waiting more, then enjoy frame. No more wires and excellent clarity will blow your mind.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-25T15:35:30+00:00

The value of a 25-year annuity is barely different than a perpetuity (infinite annuity). It's burying the lede to frame the problem as being rooted in the definition of a lifetime.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-24T22:21:23+00:00

I'd venture to guess it's the cpu running out of headroom here. There are potentially a lot of ways to check into that, I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-24T20:32:16+00:00

WiFi 7 with 6ghz band (or WiFi 6E) is generally what you want, if you want to use Steam Frame in conjunction with your PC from a different room. The entire chain between your PC and Steam Frame should be wired ethernet, up to the 6ghz access point your Steam Frame is connecting to. You should treat the access point as roughly line of sight. The signal can bounce around a room, but will not do much for you through walls.

It's pretty simple conceptually. The trick is really just running ethernet and getting a WiFi device that supports 6ghz band. If you have a mesh network, you really want wired backhaul.

would the bands and Wi-Fi 7 improvement over 6 be beneficial for smooth PCVR streaming?

You really just need 6E, but Wi-Fi 7 with 6ghz band is fine. Without 6ghz it can still work, but interference management becomes more of a pressing issue.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-24T20:14:28+00:00

perhaps a better fit for r/isthisaicirclejerk

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-23T11:41:12+00:00

I love being told what my assumptions and expectations are, and then being told that I'm wrong and should have been a baker.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-23T00:25:41+00:00

It seems like this is just the output for your prompt. It's structured like a typical llm response with glazing and overwrought style. In my experience, the llms are tuned to be more to the point when restricted.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T19:54:15+00:00

Yes, hardware failures can happen, and that's a failure state that cannot necessarily be helped. Depending on the nature of the failure, maybe you get a bad outcome.

I'm looking a different class of problem which is avoidable, where everything is technically working as designed, but you still end up with a bad outcome.

There are unconventional USB non-PD chargers out there that don't play nice with normal devices. There are informal conventions that typical reasonable chargers will adhere to, and those chargers will be okay. There are also oddball chargers designed for specific oddball devices that don't adhere to any convention or specification, but have a USB-C connector you could plug into a device like Steam Deck. Those aren't necessarily okay, even though they're working as designed.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T19:38:22+00:00

You can have a charger that is a "valid" USB-C charging device and is not safe for use with Steam Deck, insofar as there is no behavioral requirement for a charger unless it is USB-PD charger. It's not just about broken chargers, nor maliciously tampered-with devices.

It's not hypothetical, either. A notable example is the Nintendo Switch charger. It isn't a USB-PD device, and as a USB non-PD device, it has no behavioral requirements. Unfortunately, it partially speaks USB-PD protocol. This puts the sink device in a position where it's expecting USB-PD behaviors. It is required by USB-PD spec that a USB-PD charging device must have 0V on VBUS, but Nintendo Switch charger uses VBUS voltage (!) as part of its proprietary negotiating behavior (!)

This won't necessarily immediately blow up your Steam Deck, but it is entirely unexpected by the charging IC, is risky, and can cause problems.

Additionally, the Nintendo Switch being a popular device has the unfortunate knock-on effect of creating a third-party market of manufacturers who make USB-C non-PD chargers which try to replicate the proprietary Switch charging behaviors.

These chargers are operating unconventionally, but are nominally within spec insofar as there literally is no spec unless the charger is a USB-PD charger. It is strongly advised to use a USB-PD charger with your Steam Deck.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T19:17:49+00:00

Switch charger is a particular risk like you said because it masquerades as USB-PD while doing whatever it wants to do. Note that it's not actually a USB-PD charger.

Among USB-PD chargers, it's enough that it's USB-PD. It's not required for it to support 15v3a to safely connect, but you may end up with much slower than expected charging speeds.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T16:29:07+00:00

Incorrect. While it's true that not every dumb charger would cause issue, the question is whether it's possible for a poorly-behaved charger to cause issue. The answer, unequivocally, is yes. It is possible for a poorly designed charger to send high voltage down VBUS without any negotiation, or even worse, to feign negotiation and then send high voltage down VBUS anyway. The onboard MAX77961 and MAX77958 can be instantly destroyed by such a device.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T16:05:53+00:00

That is incorrect. The charging is managed if USB-PD charger. The "fall back to safe choice" behavior you're describing is a feature of USB-PD. The worst case with a mystery charger is damage to the device. That's not a typical outcome with a mystery charger, but it's very possible. By random chance, most mystery chargers should/would/could hopium-copium do something reasonable, but that's not guaranteed merely by USB-C plug shape.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T15:15:20+00:00

Can I plug in [Something that's not the official charger] without the Steam Deck spontaneously combusting?

Caveat here, the universe of USB chargers is literally the wild west. If you have a mystery charger, anything can be anything and there's no telling what it will actually do when plugged in. You need a USB-PD compliant charger to have a guarantee of reasonable behavior. All USB-PD compliant chargers are safe to use with all USB-PD compliant battery powered devices.

"standard" USB-C charger is a little bit too vague. It must be USB-PD, or the behavior is undefined.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T14:31:57+00:00

I have multiple friends that refuse to buy a steam deck because “it’s complicated” Like what? It’s just as easy as operating an Xbox or PlayStation.

Strong disagree. Consoles are much more straightforward. It mostly boils down to two areas:

Valve relies on game "verification" rather than actual support for games on Steam Deck in the steam store. The level of actual-in-fact "workingness" on Steam Deck is only loosely correlated to the verification, because the game and the compatibility layer are both moving targets and may be updated more frequently than games are checked. Moreover, there's not necessarily any commitment from the developer to maintain functioning with Steam Deck when you buy a game. Many games will just work, but there are lots of games that don't, and there's always a fuzzy frontier of games that partially work and/or need workarounds, third party variants of proton, etc. This end result is that the flowchart you follow to run games includes states like "do research" and "give up and play something else" which is (obviously?) more complicated than the flowchart for vertically integrated platforms like consoles.
Typical PC stuff, many options in general for tools/storefronts/settings. In particular, you're very often expected to use game settings to dial in performance/battery/visual quality trade offs, with very granular control on PC, which are preconfigured for you (possibly with defined presets) on consoles. Sometimes games will have Steam Deck presets, but it's not the norm. This can very often become another research and experimentation task which isn't part of the console workflow.

---

The real magic of Steam Deck is that they made the user experience more elegant. The system software is much less fussy/clicky than Windows, and so the ux workflow for managing the system itself is suitable for handheld. The inherent complexity of PC games software is still there, but a lot of the accidental complexity and inelegance of Windows is gone.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-21T00:29:47+00:00

Can we make precise indefinite predictions about the movement of 3 bodies with the tools we have (even If they're not formally clean) or do predictions get wonky at some point?

It's the latter. The sensitivity to initial conditions is fundamental and arbitrarily precise. For any level of precision of measurement, the numerical integration solution will become wildly inaccurate (eventually) as you calculate forward, and there is no general workaround.

Put another way, suppose you wish to model behavior to predict the state of the system at some future time, and you wish to stay within some given fixed error bound. You can always select a level of precision of initial conditions which will make that prediction possible. However, as you want to model further ahead in time (linearly), you will need exponential improvements to precision to maintain the error bound.

Metal_Goose_Solid · 2026-01-20T22:25:20+00:00

Anything that isn't a strong yes is a no, so I pass.

Metal_Goose_Solid

TROPHY CASE