Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

gamedevs have been feeling suffocated by macOS for many years, but i am a very unusual kind of gamedev, so it's come much later for me. but i think i've hit the point where i want to switch.

so uhhhhh at Some Pointβ„’ i'm going to set up some flavour of lunix (the illegal hacker operating system by soviet computer nerd linyos torovoltos) on my windows pc and start using it as my primary computer. this'll do wonders for my compile times btw, it's like ten to thirty times higher TDP than my MacBook

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

and then, as much as it pains me to not be joining the glorious aarch64 future, as much as i would love to be a full-time asahi linux user... my next laptop will probably be a Framework, if they're still in business then 😭

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TheMaxus

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari I really wish there were more good aarch64 laptops that aren't Apple. There is Thinkpad x13s that some people say is worth buying, but I'd rather wait a few years until there's more to choose from.

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to TheMaxus)

@themaxus https://twitter.com/hikari_no_yume/status/1698652120562712639

Saagar Jha

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari @themaxus The issue here seems like one of capable chips
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TheMaxus

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @hikari There are lots of capable non x86 chips, ARM is already used in servers. Also modern powerful PowerPC CPUs exist for example POWER9

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Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to TheMaxus)

@themaxus @saagar Arm Limited have capable core designs but the SoCs incorporating them available on the market are another matter

Saagar Jha

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari @themaxus Disagree. Compare Cortex-A710 to, say, M2 or A16: the difference is frequently more than 20% on every microarchitectural detail

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus yeah i knew what i said was wishful thinking actually. we're in a weird place where only Apple can build a good Arm-based laptop :(

osy

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari @saagar @themaxus Nuvia πŸ™

Saagar Jha

(replying to osy)
@osy86 @hikari @themaxus Remember when Arm was so confident in their capable core designs that they sued Qualcomm over their architecture license in an attempt to stop them using Nuvia talent for new processors

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 i think it would be more accurate to say the lawsuit is a way to get a higher license fee, but i don't know anything you don't

Saagar Jha

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari @themaxus @osy86 The lawsuit is to make their $50 billion IPO this month seem justified but I also have no special information and you should definitely treat this as investment advice
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Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 i agree. i'm pouring my life savings into nuvia, thanks so much

osy

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari @saagar @themaxus wait noooo wccftech.com/qualcomm-oryon-pr

Saagar Jha

(replying to Saagar Jha)
@hikari @osy86 @themaxus Look I’ll believe the chips when I see them but all I know is both Intel and AMD are doing a pretty decent job and Nuvia only seems to exist internally at the moment

osy

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @hikari @themaxus it’ll never happen but wouldn’t it be INSANE if it goes to court and QC loses and have to *checks notes* destroy all of their Nuvia based designs?

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Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to osy)

@osy86 @saagar @themaxus now that's how you extort a settlement

Saagar Jha

(replying to osy)
@osy86 @hikari @themaxus Qualcomm can’t lose this case, this is an area that’s their core competency. It’s cute that a tiny UK company thinks they can extract rent from a company that made Apple cry for mommy in licensing fees

Saagar Jha

(replying to Saagar Jha)
@osy86 @hikari @themaxus This would be like trying to file a patent infringement case against Rambus. Like, lol, you do realize that 99% of the company is lawyers who do this all day because that’s where all their money comes from

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 the only photo on the wikipedia article for rambus is of their patent wall

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 actually that's not true, there's also a macro shot of one of the rare instances of their technology appearing in a real product, from three decades ago

Saagar Jha

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari @themaxus @osy86 Yeah Nintendo 64 is like the only product ever that used RDRAM

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 the only product worth buying!

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@saagar @themaxus @osy86 why get a good processor with normal RAM when you can get a NetBurst Pentium 4 with RDRAM

Saagar Jha

(replying to TheMaxus)
@themaxus @hikari Servers typically use a different class of processor from laptops. ARM on servers is (slowly) gaining traction but typically because it’s cheaper or more efficient or you have a very special workload that takes advantage of the architecture.

Saagar Jha

(replying to Saagar Jha)
@themaxus @hikari But the class these chips are operating in are nowhere near what you’d want in a laptop. If you scale the power budget down (say, from Neoverse-N2 to Cortex-710) the chips end up kinda wimpy

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar @themaxus it's a chicken/egg thing. they don't want to make high-end laptop or desktop chips if they don't think there's demand, but so long as there are none on the market there isn't going to be demand, IMO

Saagar Jha

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari @themaxus I mean there is plenty of demand for mobile SoCs and those are pretty bad too

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

it's funny how circumstance changes you. if i still had my cushy, well-paid and very interesting tech job (yes i am aware what an enormous privilege that was) i would just throw €2500 at apple and get me a max-spec m1 macbook air, and then not have to think about all of this for another few years, maybe switching to asahi if i got frustrated enough with macOS. but now i am living the "full-time passion project" (i.e. unsustainable finances) life, so.

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

and to be clear, it's not a bad thing that i'm forced to change course here. as a mac user i basically get trapped in an overpriced-storage ratchet. with each new mac, i double the space, and i can't ever reduce it much, so each new mac is more expensive than the last, even though the flash chips only get cheaper with time.

Stefan です

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari I have this idea of someday moving out of the Apple ecosystem in the back of my mind and I'm dreading it. I also switched to Mac about 11 years ago and not really used a different desktop OS since then (although I work with Ubuntu/Debian servers a lot). I also use a ton of Apple-specific apps. I guess the best way is to slowly switch one app/service at a time...

Good luck with your switch!

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Stefan です)

@stefandesu thanks! yeah i'm not looking forward to finding a new to-do list app, a new music player, no longer having handoff, a new disk encryption solution, and many other things like this

Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Iwasawa 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@stefandesu at least i've had my foot in all three worlds to some extent for some time, so i won't be completely lost once i make the big switch (windows gaming pc at home, linux pc at work for software development)