3 ms·

I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAI

by kanetw 4y ago

I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent. Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook). In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.

RistrettoMike 4y ago
Absolutely! The nascent state of ARM outside of iOS, Android, and now MacOS is definitely a roadblock for bringing it to projects from smaller companies like you folks. In my eyes (uneducated, consumer-level perspective) X86 is a huge question-mark for HMD devices like this, since the heat and power usage are so counter-intuitive for small form factors -- and mitigating those concerns usually actively works against the "higher-performance" nature of the chips. (low-tdp allowances, throttling, etc.) Like I mentioned above, I really do wish y'all the best of luck with it. I just don't envy having to be reliant on an old and power-hungry architecture just because the newer, better architectures don't lend themselves to this sort of project yet. I hope the Simula One sticks the balance!
- kanetw 4y ago
  I don't have an XR2 devkit so I can only guess, but TDP-wise they seem pretty comparable. Obviously that doesn't include boost power etc and there's stuff integrated into the XR2 that we need to do on an FPGA, but overall I've not felt like a modern x86 processor is overly disadvantaged. I'm sure one could do a more rigorous comparison, but IMO with the recent Intel/AMD chips you get pretty good performance/power.

3 ms·

I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAI

by kanetw 4y ago

RistrettoMike 4y ago
Absolutely! The nascent state of ARM outside of iOS, Android, and now MacOS is definitely a roadblock for bringing it to projects from smaller companies like you folks. In my eyes (uneducated, consumer-level perspective) X86 is a huge question-mark for HMD devices like this, since the heat and power usage are so counter-intuitive for small form factors -- and mitigating those concerns usually actively works against the "higher-performance" nature of the chips. (low-tdp allowances, throttling, etc.) Like I mentioned above, I really do wish y'all the best of luck with it. I just don't envy having to be reliant on an old and power-hungry architecture just because the newer, better architectures don't lend themselves to this sort of project yet. I hope the Simula One sticks the balance!
- kanetw 4y ago
  I don't have an XR2 devkit so I can only guess, but TDP-wise they seem pretty comparable. Obviously that doesn't include boost power etc and there's stuff integrated into the XR2 that we need to do on an FPGA, but overall I've not felt like a modern x86 processor is overly disadvantaged. I'm sure one could do a more rigorous comparison, but IMO with the recent Intel/AMD chips you get pretty good performance/power.