Even managed to run this system ONLY with SOLAR POWER from March to November (but not winter X-D)

Of course RISC(V/ARM) based (mobile) gaming systems would be those that use the least amount of power per frame 😀

But it seems that Apple STILL does not care about gaming (unfortunately) and the performance and graphics on smart phones gets better and better, but there is still some way to go.

More surprising: It is even possible with AMD in the form of AMD Ryzen 5 5600G (6x Cores clocking around 4Ghz, Vega7) and Ryzen 7 5700G (8x Cores, Vega8) 😀 (those power efficient CPUs were released in late 2021) which manages to stay below 100W of power usage, 36Watts in idle (under GNU Linux) 60 Watts in idle under Windows 10 64Bit Pro and below 100W under full load of all cores.

For comparison a Playstation 4 consumes around 80 to 140 (!!!) Watts (The PS5 even more (50 and ~200 Watts))

AMD known to build CPUs that draw a lot of power, it turns out their VEGA 7 APU is pretty capable (some gaming benchmarks (for some reason, one of these is run with VEGA8) at 15W usage! (a dedicated GPU would draw up to 200W during gaming) (also crazy that Intel i9 uses also up to 200W!!!)

last time checked (2023-04) even 385,00

+ add a bequiet! case (use full-metal-case, avoid cases with windows, because electro magnetic radiation shall stay inside! it really is no joke! one can damange a smart phone with the EMR coming from a 4 Ghz CPU!!!)

+  add a bequiet powersupply and ready to assemble a capable gaming PC below 500 bucks 😀

The “G” stands for GPU or Graphics, also known as APU “Accelerated Processing Unit“

So the combination of the Ryzen 5600G 7nm Zen 3 with Vega 7 (Cezanne) + Gigabyte Aorus B550 Elite AX v1 (Rev 1.1)

energy usage in idle: GNU Linux for the win!

• meassured:
  • GNU Linux Debian MATE: 36Watt
    • which is less than expected! 😀
      • mobile hardware, for comparison, still more efficient: GNU Linux Debian 11 MATE on Lenovo t440 i5 idle power consumption (not charging battery) 15Watt
  • Windows 10 Pro sitting idle for 10min: 60Watt
    
    • which is WAY more than expected, why actually is Windows using almost double the energy?
  • of course the ARM or RISC CPU + GNU Linux is THE BEST ENERGY SAVER combination!
    • (Linus) ‘Torvalds has been keen on using an Apple M1 MacBook Air, which he’s previously said would be “almost perfect, except for the OS.”‘ (src)

can draw ~18FPS of Horizon Zero Dawn with settings on “High” while using ~86W (-38.58% LESS POWER USAGE than a PS4)

Setting game’s details from “high” to “medium” did not affect power usage much (86W when set to “Ultra”)

some benchmarks:

• Geekbench6 (AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 )
  • SingleCore: 1967
  • MultiCore: 7950
  • GPU (OpenCL) Score: 15679
  • GPU (Vulcan) Score: 15277
• 1st run userbenchmark.com
• 2nd run userbenchmark.com
  • according to this a ~100Bucks GPU Nvidia GTX 1050 (while of course consuming more power) is +50% faster X-D than the Vega8: “an iGPU // would recommend to anyone looking to build a system now without paying scalper prices for gpus”
• can it play 8k (Youtube) Videos?
  • in Firefox: no, it drops a lot of frames
  • offline in VLC player: no it’s stuttering like sh… (this is a WEEE BIT dissapointing AMD to say the least! (has no hardware acceleration for x265 (modern ARM SoC can do that while consuming far less!)

back to the topic this system is build for: games

• A MUST GAME TITLE OF THE GENIUS GUERILLA GAMES STUDIOS!
• THE BEST ADVENTURE GAME IN DECADES! (release 2017)
• + okay controls
  • far from excellent, sometimes Aloy feels a bit sluggish and slow to react
  • shooting arrows with the hold-two-mouse buttons is INTERESTING concept (L-Mouse for aiming, R-Mouse for pulling)
    • but will DEFINATELY destroy the mouse over time 😀
    • is a major pain for the fingers X-D (maybe it should be played with a Joypad but then again, aiming is best down with mouse)
  • hint: try climbing hills (out of reach) and shoot down on powerful enemies by frequently hitting Space (Jump) + E (USE) it often works 😀
• + excellent story (despite the very beautiful landscapes, the story is PRETTY DYSTOPIAN 🙁
  
  • SPOILER ALERT: here is the core of it
    • Horizon Zero Dawn – Dr Elisabeth Sobeck final words
• + stunning graphics
  
  • all the cut scenes are done with the game engine (no pre-rendering, but they draw more details)
• true “electronic Art”
• where electrons become (mostly) good experiences 😀
• the game is often (50 Bucks is too much!) on sale on steam
  • if not try eBay 🙂

(okay during CPU stress test (6x Cores all threads) power usage goes to close 100W, but it seems a lot of games will not use the CPU to 100%)

HINT: even if the Gameplay reminds VERY MUCH of Red Faction Guerilla (titles sometimes dubed “GTA on Mars” (but it is more than that) also GENIUS title, gripping genius story plus excellent demolition physics X-D)

these are two different games from two different game studios/companies.

“Guerrilla Games is a Dutch first party video game developer founded in 2000 from the spin-off of Lost Boys Games and is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is wholly owned by Sony through Sony Interactive Entertainment.”

setting up the BIOS:

• DEFINATELY enter the correct RAM speeds, otherwise it might run 10% slower!
  • should be written on the RAM otherwise google for the specs online!
    • like the Ballistix (by Crucial) 3200Mhz 16-18-18-36 @ 1.35V
      • 
    • 
    • incorrect RAM settings (slower)
      • 
    • correct RAM settings (+15% faster)
      • 
      • no GPU: = ~100W power usage
      • 
      • +Nvidia GTX 1050 = 140W power usage!!!
      • 
      • +Nvidia GTX 6070 = 200W power usage!!!
      • 
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2, Sockel AM4
• also disable CSM support and give that VEGA more RAM, better 8 GBytes than 4GB!
  • “CSM is nothing but a UEFI configuration that emulates legacy BIOS systems and offers backward compatibility“
• while in BIOS go to Tweaker -> Overclocking\Advanced CPU Configuration -> enable SVM Mode (KVM Virtualization support)
  • 

  • 

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

or

it might complain like this: (no problem, just hit “Yes” it will run never the less…. maybe crash once until it “realized” it needs to assign more RAM to the GPU)

CHECK IT OUT! IT IS JUST MIND BLOWING! 😀

graphics was NEVER the most important for a great game, it was and still is THE GAMEPLAY!

and here Horizon Zero Dawns does a pretty good job 😀 hunting ROBOTs with a BOW? (maybe even RIDING A ROBOT HORSE! 😀 KID U NOT!)

ALSO: it is FAR from a monotone shooter…

the player needs to gather resources such as herbs and parts from dead machines in ordert to build usefull stuff or trade.

it has a pretty but not too much complexity!

adding to the atmosphere is the completely makes sense story…

and the ICING on TOP is that AMAZING LANDSCAPE GRAPHICS! (THIS IS ALL IN GAME GRAPHICS! ALL THE CUT SCENES ARE IN GAME GRAPHICS!)

…this is of course electronic arts of a different 1980s kind:

modern version, in the browser, still electronic arts 😀

https://ringtailsoftware.github.io/zig-wasm-audio-framebuffer/bat.html

there is a pretty amount of talking… (unfortunately, it mostly does not matter what the player answers, but sometimes, only sometimes (Olin’s fate) life (Olin’s) and death (Olin’s) depend on the player’s answer, spare his life and he will help u later at an side-quest to free his family from the evil Sun workshiping madmen called “The Eclipse” cult)

more screenshots:

(OK there are little glitches with the techno bushes X-D, probably need to install the updates/patches)

overall:

• it is a stunning genius gameplay + good controls + excellent story + stunning graphics: THE BEST ADVENTURE GAME IN DECADES! (release 2017)
  • the controls work pretty fine, sometimes the E button is used is reacting a bit too slow and it is used for many things at the same time 😀 (sometimes this switches to V ?)
  • production costs were ~50Million USD
  • within 2 years over 20 Million copies were sold
    • so estimated, that each copy costs at least 20 Bucks 20 * 20 = 400 Million or factor 10x earned, probably way more.
    • so this investment definately payed off for Sony & Guerilla games
• it is a genius game full of detail 😀
• highly recommended

what could be better:

• coop online a mutliplayer mode, where 2 (and more?) players can play the campaign together (like in Halo) 😀
  • coop mode would be: only humans (multiple players) vs AI computer machines
• Aloy is a master climber, but only in the cut scenes and predefined paths (“yellow stuff she can grab”)
  • to climb a mountain… a lot of random jumping in combination with hammering the E button might do
    • it would be great if Aloy could climb “regular” mountains
• the gameplay is pretty “savage”
  • killing and looting robots AND humans?
    • there should be a “family friendly” mode/version, where there is less violence & only killing robots 😀
      • even starting to feeling sorry for the machines, because they are so well done “animals” 😀
• what is a bit strange:
  • only machines can destroy stuff for example a tree or even A ROCK (A BLOODY ROCK!) but the player can not?
    • except, when the player is riding a machine
  • hiding in tall grass makes the player basically invisible to machines, hiding in even taller bushes not?

Catzilla benchmark energy: with and without dedicated GPU NVIDIA 1050 GTX 2GB

energy use below 100W: (without dedicated GPU)

energy use ~ 140W with dedicated GPU during benchmark, in idle it is still 25W more than without the GPU but yes, the catzilla 3D performance score is DOUBLE with dedicated GPU.

the story-plot:

• the story is absolutely GENIUS!
  •  25.000 years ago a military AI has gone wild and destroyed the planet (The Matrix plot)
    • mankind lost control over their AI machines, nearly (?) wiping out all of mankind and all life on Earth, definately catapulting mankind back into the “Stone Age”
    • 
  • last chance to save life is:
    • to fight until the last man/woman against the machine, to gain time, to build another AI “Gaia” that is programmed to restore habitable conditions on planet Earth
    • The Machines that the Gaia AI build are imitating nature <- this is ACTUALLY very realistic and accurate, as AI generated structures are often very ORGANIC.
    • 
    • Gaia manages not only to defeat the “Metal Devil” (the bad AI that went crazy and destroyed all of mankind and all biomass on Earth)
      • but Gaia also manages to design machines, that help in cleaning up Air, Water and Land in order to restore the habitat (those are the machines the player is hunting)
    • Aloy is in essence – a clone of Dr Sobeck – the humanoid who developed first the Evil AI and then the Gaia AI the “antidote” if you will.
  • Aloy grows up with outlaw-by-choice father with the name “Rost”
    • All the Characters in Horizon Zero Dawn are SO DAMN WELL DESIGNED, BET THEY ARE ACTUAL REAL PEOPLE 😀
  • the part of the plot that sucks:
    • it is gripping, but a bit too confusing X-D (UNIX KISS keep it simple! :D)
    • unecessary for Rost to die (it is completely unecessary for Rost to get killed by evil humans)
      • it would be cooler if Rost would show up every now and then and fight along Aloy/help her out 😀
    • outcast girl has to master a challenge to become “a brave” nora tribe member (masters that)
    • then all those who mastered the challenge become victim to an attack by “evil guy X” that also kills Rost

• at the beginning the game on medium can be a challenge as some enemies are just way too powerfull (“Sawtooth” = Sabertooth) 😀
  • earning “shards” (aka money) is hard at first, but after Level 20 it will become easier, also there are tricks:
    • hint: buy 2x fast travel packs and travel to nora hunting grounds, select the first challenge “shoot canisters off graze rbacks”, the player will get a lot of blaze canisters that can be sold for 4 shards each in Meridian to the “Hunting Goods Merchant” to buy better bows
      • this is also good to gather a lot of “Blaze” (flamable liquid) that is used to craft many weapons such as sling-shot-grenades and fire-arrows and does not need to be bought expensively for 20 Shards each
    • problem with this “gameplay”: that is exactly how the buffalos died out
      • hunters got paid per buffalo skin
        • “One professional hunter killed over 20,000 by his own count”
        • ” average prices paid the buffalo hunters from 1880 to 1884 was about as follows:
          • For cow hides, $3;
          • bull hides, $2.50;” (Wiki)
          • … Bisons almost became extinct… (this can not happen with ever respaning machines but still… really no good)
  • also constantly out of “wire” (to craft traps and electro arrows), constantly need to buy wire 😀 (as in real life :D)
    • that is completely okay, but it would be great if there was another way of earning shards than shooting robot animals and looting them together with the dead humans… (pretty savage)
      • okay actually there is, it is called find “supply crate” 😀
• it would be good to guide the player a bit more when it comes to modifying and crafting, after a while, no problem, but in the beginning pretty complex 😀
• also it would be good to remind the player “u still have 2 skill points to assign to your skill map” (Aloy can learn new skills when she progresses (like in Role Play Games: more experience points = more skills = more health points)

what will be the future for energy efficient “mobile” gaming?

Expect ARM, expect ANDROID, maybe expect RISCV? 😀

If Apple would care, they COULD turn the M1 and M2 and M3 (?) into MASSIVE competitive gaming machines… but they don’t care: “Did Apple Accidentally Make the Best Gaming Laptop?”

2023: “CES has turned out to be a laptop-centric event in the PC space” (src)

Yes because in 2022 users bought 3x times more laptops than desktop PCs.

https://irnpost.com/6-best-laptops-for-game-development/

For AMD it is “chiplets” instead of APUs. Agreed it is pretty confusing, but they AMD (probably?) know what they are doing.

Problem: 86x has grown WAY too complex, hence the Spectre and Meltdown security flaws “in hardware”, that can not be fixed, only mitigated in software (Linus Torvalds furious about Intel)

The Unix philosophy of K.I.S.S – simple and beautiful software that “just works”

power efficiency: YES! DEFINATELY!

but also: NO ONE will want a computer/CPU, that can do gaming (only when connected to the internet) but is highly insecure.

so when does AMD go RISC(V)? 😀 (it seems, they already do?)

“The use of a 2 CU RDNA-2 iGPU goes hand in hand with the desktop module, but since these CPUs are usually combined with mobile graphics cards, this should not be a disadvantage compared to the APUs of the 7040 series, which have an up to 12 CU RDNA-3 iGPU.” (src)

“some time in february”

ryzen 7045hx

Gamers Nexus

TSMC involved: 4nm

“We don’t know yet what PC hardware products could be manufactured on this process (while the mentioned midrange/lower-end series of ARM mobile SoCs seem to be very likely). Nvidia is expected to keep partnering with Samsung for future GPU (at least those for the gaming market) manufacturing. Samsung has its own 4nm process, but it is expected to be slightly worse in energy efficiency and possibly inperformance than TSMC’s, which was the case with their 5nm nodes. AMD should probably jump on the 3nm technology for processors, which will supposedly be used in Zen 5 architecture processors. However, it is possible that there would be some laptop/cheaper APU or GPU made at 4 nm. Intel might be interested, as it is about to introduce a GPU on the 6nm TSMC process and the 4nm process will have a similar product positioning in TSMC’s offering as the current 6nm process has.” (src)

Random change of topic

here is another S21 Ultra Snow Winter picture: (completely unedited)

PS: back to topic: knew it, that Seylens is not 100% true X-D (when the game is finished… DO NOT SKIP THE CREDITZS! for an aditional bonus cut scene! GENIUS! :D)

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