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bwDraco

00:00

But at the end of the day, Gentoo champions choice, and supporting both OpenRC and systemd in parallel epitomizes this philosophy. For those who want a clean, traditional solution, OpenRC is there. For those who prefer the tight integration that systemd offers and don't mind its complexity, that's an option.

And there are other choices as well, with varying degrees of community support.

forest

Fully agree. I'd be more upset if Gentoo dropped support for systemd...

bwDraco

Yup.

And that's what makes Gentoo special.

forest

It's not just that, but the fact that it makes it easy. Anyone can take a toolchain and install some stuff to /usr/local/bin, but only Gentoo's Portage makes it a pleasure to do so.

bwDraco

And it's just so easy to customize the build process and make it do what you expect it to do. Portage does the rest for you.

I've never actually written an ebuild (and I'd need to learn Bash scripting), but the system just works.

forest

Although ebuilds are based on bash, there are so many different custom functions that it's not really bash at all.

Also depends on what ebuild version (EAPI) you want to use, but it's quite easy to use to add simple packages, sometimes so easy that you can use the bare-bones template, and even fairly complex ones don't take a lot of work to get running right.

bwDraco

00:21

1 hour ago, by forest

I think most people are like me. They see it as feature creep and something violating the Unix philosophy by default. It's more like WinLogon.exe than it is an init system.

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthn/…

TIL

Got some stuff to do, nice talking with you :)

forest

Same. later o/

13 hours later…

bwDraco

13:19

Finally got to doing some power measurements on my desktop... about 310-320W from Astaroth proper under a reduced-power gaming load (GPU set to 175W), up to a maximum of 550-600W with higher CPU load and maximum GPU power (375W). The monitors contribute about 35W.

175W still provides an outstanding 1440p gaming experience on the RTX 3090.

(about 70W comes from the CPU under the reduced-power load)

Absolute peak power would be about 650-700W.

Idle is about 90-100W.

pcgamesn.com/microsoft/gaming-environmental-impact

The amount of heat Astaroth dumps into the room while gaming is why I have a gaming laptop. It draws half the power, and I can move it elsewhere in the house so the heat doesn't end up in my room.

Of course, not a substitute for a desktop, but you get the idea.

I also need Astaroth for photo-editing work. The Alienware AW2721D I'm using is color-calibrated and color-profiled, and Capture One assumes your monitor is calibrated.

(that laptop's monitor has a terribad color gamut)

grist.org/energy/…

So, when I don't need the highest possible frame rates or best visuals, I'll try to fall back on the HP OMEN 16.

And there's also the cost of HVAC in the summer. My bedroom is on the top floor of a three-story Colonial Revival town house, and faces west so it ends up getting the brunt of the sun's heat. Being able to move the laptop to the first floor reduces the need to crank up the AC to compensate for the heat generated by the computer.

polygon.com/features/22914488/…

No, the gaming laptop will never pay for itself. The $1,479 laptop saves about 3-10 cents in electrical costs per hour of gaming, depending on system settings, and usually towards the lower end of that range. The real advantage is ultimately one of climate control in this house.

I'm not sure as to the exact environmental impact of manufacturing that OMEN 16, though like most newer HP hardware, it does contain recycled ocean-bound plastic.

And of course, underclocking, undervolting, power limiting, and frame-rate limiting can all help. As much fun as it may be to chase overclocking records, you can get an excellent gaming experience while using a lot less energy.

So, your thoughts on the environmental impact of gaming and how gamers could reduce their carbon footprint?

5 hours later…

Michael

19:16

@bwDraco Well you're just sitting in your house not going anywhere, so i'd say that's pretty good :)

2 hours later…

Michael

20:58

Aside from lowering your graphics settings and throttling your FPS (which defeats the purpose of having a high-end gaming rig), you could reduce energy consumption by using a headset instead of speakers.

bwDraco

lol

Journeyman Geek

Your PC uses less power than other things

bwDraco

Well, this is getting more critical due to the war in Ukraine.

Michael

Also, you could use wired peripherals (e.g. mouse, keyboard, headset, Ethernet not WiFi).

So no Bluetooth mouse for example.

bwDraco

Well, that's all very minute.

That's tenths of a watt we're looking at here.

For speakers, a few watts.

Maaaaaybe a few dozen watts.

Game settings and stuff can move the meter 50-100 watts easily.

Michael

21:02

High quality speakers consume a descent amount of power, don't they? E.g. if you have a subwoofer.

I recall seeing "60W" speakers at the store the other day.

bwDraco

That's peak power. Continuous power is usually half that, and you're basically running the volume at max to hit that power level.

Michael

Reducing monitor brightness maybe?

bwDraco

21:19

That's 5-10 watts.

Capping frame rates can actually produce a smoother experience due to more consistent frame times, and that's easily 20-50 watts.

High-end GPUs are often run well beyond their optimal power point, meaning a disproportionate amount of power is used to obtain, typically, the top 10-20% of the performance.

I run my RTX 3090 with reduced memory frequency because the games I play don't noticeably respond to decreases in memory bandwidth and the memory draws a disproportionate amount of power (24 GB of GDDR6X do not help).

The RTX 3080 is a more efficient card.

But that's what I got, so... /shrug

Cutting power in half only degrades performance by about 20%. The impact is greater at higher resolutions because the GPU shader cores are more fully utilized, but at 1440p, the RTX 3090 isn't exactly getting pushed that hard.

In any case, the cost of electricity is the primary reason I don't like using my desktop for anything other than gaming or photo editing.

bwDraco

21:49

I'm not the one paying the energy bills in this house but I do try to make sure I do my part to keep energy use in check.

Took a peek at my mom's energy bills and it turns out we're paying about $0.23-$0.25/kWh. Electricity is expensive in NYC.

And this will only go up with the war in Ukraine.

forest

I've been thinking of upgrading my GPU cluster, but the electric bills and the chip shortage are making me wait...

But modern GPGPUs are getting so damn good and mine are really outdated.

2 hours later…

bwDraco

23:52