4 ms·

I did not know this concept existed, Wonderful Idea, no doubt demakes would be a lot more frequent if we valued ecology and actually tried to curb digital obsol

I did not know this concept existed, Wonderful Idea, no doubt demakes would be a lot more frequent if we valued ecology and actually tried to curb digital obsolescence as much as possible, in a permacomputing way. I imagine it would be much more straightforward to port pretty much any indie games to consoles like Xbox original onwards, PS3 onwards, Wii onwards, maybe Windows 7 average desktop and notebooks (lots of indies already use older direct x and are compatible with windows 7 , another win for the pc master race). The AAA Games would need to be done with less scale and no 4k dlss ray tracing whatever.

p0w3n3d 3y ago
I was thinking the same - ecology. People need to have 3d Tetris with raytracing while there are millions of hours of old games to be played through. There are few titles that are avant-garde and IMO better in 3d, like GTA VC/SA, Minecraft is revelation of a sandbox game. But otherwise we don't need such good graphics and DLC, when we want story and playability. Recently we played with kids Pokémon fire Red - the world is huge and full of secrets. But I guess this only applies to me and my kids, because other kids I know (my brother's e.g.) don't like pixel games at all
nonethewiser 3y ago
This demake is an additional game. Seems like it will just add to the energy load required to run a computer programs. Which I think is fine, frankly. Perhaps some people will play it instead of portal but even still there is the overhead of developing it. I guess if we cared about ecology we'd shut down more game servers faster.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  To 'save the planet' you want as many people playing video games, watching TV, or arguing on social media as possible. If they're doing those things, consuming digital entertainment (eventually powered by renewables), then they're not out in the real world, travelling around using fossil fuels, consuming physical products, using up physical resources and emitting CO2. Pretty bleak future though.
  - sgu999 3y ago
    Or simply less people, busy doing what machine can't, with a bit less free time to spare. It's as bleak if we put ourselves in the shoes of the humans who wouldn't exist, but not that bleak for the ones who would...
    - Kerb_ 3y ago
      Our free time is likely dwarfed by the labor spent on inefficient means towards inefficient ends if we're going to this level of analysis though
  - uoaei 3y ago
    You raise an interesting question: how many people would you be able to bus how far into nature to spend how long with zero electricity consumption to make it net-negative compared to the consumption incurred in the course of their habitual lives? My naive orders-of-magnitude guess is ~20 people in a bus going ~100 miles (each way) would only need 2-4 days before the net goes negative. It's kinda crazy how much compute is dedicated to streaming HD video or serving an endless scroll of Instagram.
    - bluescrn 3y ago
      Those people out in nature are likely to be doing physical activities, even if just walking, and those extra calories will need replenishing too
MayeulC 3y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, and it's awesome that a lower-specced version of the game exists... > port [...] to consoles like Xbox original Uuh, in the name of energy efficiency, let's not. My smartphone is much more powerful and has a much lower power consumption than these systems. My Steam Deck even more so, though it's higher-power than a phone. Targeting energy-efficient, low power hardware should be the goal, not porting to inneficient obsolete HW, IMO (though it's pretty cool, and demonstrates that you can do a lot with little computing power). Still, I agree that something that runs well on old commodity hardware can run well on most existing hardware, reducing the need for hardware upgrades. But my point is, running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you only value ecology. At best, you could emulate old HW with much more efficient modern HW, and integrate most of the system on a single low power chip.
- heinrich5991 3y ago
  > But my point is, running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you only value ecology. Do you have a calculation for that? It's not entirely clear that this is the case if you factor in that the old hardware already exists and new hardware needs to be produced.
  - MayeulC 3y ago
    I will try to answer later with actual math, though a commenter above did a rough estimate. I would think it pays back relatively quickly. Moreover, this approach cannot really scale as old hardware and parts is scarce, and using it at a larger scale would make it scarcer (due to more normal failures). That's if you look specifically at one kind of system, but I believe the real value is in making code portable across a range of low-power systems, including recent and old ones. You're also looking at it from the perspective of not needing new hardware, but I already have both my phone and my Steam Deck. Incidentally, I bought a Steam Deck in part because it was cheaper than a GPU upgrade for my desktop PC, while being more powerful and efficient than my current setup. My PC has been collecting dust as I boot the same disk on my Steam Deck, at 1/10-30 the power enveloppe. As an added benefit, I don't have to turn this high-power system on while it's 35C in the room.
indolering 3y ago
> I imagine it would be much more straightforward to port pretty much any indie games to consoles like Xbox original onwards, PS3 onwards, Wii onwards, maybe Windows 7 average desktop and notebooks (lots of indies already use older direct x and are compatible with windows 7 , Not a game developer, but given the lack of ports between current gen gaming systems I would assume that it is not straightforward. Sure, a game engine will magically pump out your game for different backends but even supporting Vulkan and Metal results in much gnawing and mashing of teeth (and a lack of games on Apple hardware). Then there is the developer ergonomics. I know that I hate having to write code to maintain compatibility for even 5 year old standards. Each GPU and game engine is also a unique clusterfuck of incompatibility and subtle bugs that crash the shit out of games. If you want to support that old hardware, you will need to test on the actual hardware. Why bother with all that when there is no money in it and your team just wants to move on from a project that already took 5 years of their lives to develop? Forward compatibility is something I strongly agree with but backwards compatibility is a logistical nightmare.
- Whatever13 3y ago
  Forward compatibility is promising. - The computing systems are kinda standardized now, with consoles and pcs using X64-86 architecture, Xbox using a optimized windows os, and PS4 (almost certainly PS5 too) running BSD. Industry standards would bridge the gap even more, like making open software mandatory (everyone just incorporates their code). More companies investing in FOSS like Vulkan instead of the proprietary ones would be helpfull too. - The proton software on Linux makes a compatibility layer between the game and a newer system, and you can choose an older version. I think we could eventually just leave the ''XYZ Game of the Year'' v.2.1.4 and never touch it again, and future gamers would at most have to select the proton layer version and vulkan-directx-other game engine version of the game release time, and it could be automatically done in the instalation.
runlevel1 3y ago
> PS3 onwards By most accounts the PS3 was not fun to write software for due to its unusual specialized processing units.
anthk 3y ago
The PS3 sucked. OTOH, targeting at most GL 2.1 for a game would be one of the best tools to avoid buying new machines.

p0w3n3d 3y ago

I was thinking the same - ecology. People need to have 3d Tetris with raytracing while there are millions of hours of old games to be played through. There are few titles that are avant-garde and IMO better in 3d, like GTA VC/SA, Minecraft is revelation of a sandbox game. But otherwise we don't need such good graphics and DLC, when we want story and playability. Recently we played with kids Pokémon fire Red - the world is huge and full of secrets. But I guess this only applies to me and my kids, because other kids I know (my brother's e.g.) don't like pixel games at all

nonethewiser 3y ago

This demake is an additional game. Seems like it will just add to the energy load required to run a computer programs. Which I think is fine, frankly. Perhaps some people will play it instead of portal but even still there is the overhead of developing it. I guess if we cared about ecology we'd shut down more game servers faster.

bluescrn 3y ago
To 'save the planet' you want as many people playing video games, watching TV, or arguing on social media as possible. If they're doing those things, consuming digital entertainment (eventually powered by renewables), then they're not out in the real world, travelling around using fossil fuels, consuming physical products, using up physical resources and emitting CO2. Pretty bleak future though.
- sgu999 3y ago
  Or simply less people, busy doing what machine can't, with a bit less free time to spare. It's as bleak if we put ourselves in the shoes of the humans who wouldn't exist, but not that bleak for the ones who would...
  - Kerb_ 3y ago
    Our free time is likely dwarfed by the labor spent on inefficient means towards inefficient ends if we're going to this level of analysis though
- uoaei 3y ago
  You raise an interesting question: how many people would you be able to bus how far into nature to spend how long with zero electricity consumption to make it net-negative compared to the consumption incurred in the course of their habitual lives? My naive orders-of-magnitude guess is ~20 people in a bus going ~100 miles (each way) would only need 2-4 days before the net goes negative. It's kinda crazy how much compute is dedicated to streaming HD video or serving an endless scroll of Instagram.
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    Those people out in nature are likely to be doing physical activities, even if just walking, and those extra calories will need replenishing too

MayeulC 3y ago

While I agree with the sentiment, and it's awesome that a lower-specced version of the game exists... > port [...] to consoles like Xbox original Uuh, in the name of energy efficiency, let's not. My smartphone is much more powerful and has a much lower power consumption than these systems. My Steam Deck even more so, though it's higher-power than a phone. Targeting energy-efficient, low power hardware should be the goal, not porting to inneficient obsolete HW, IMO (though it's pretty cool, and demonstrates that you can do a lot with little computing power). Still, I agree that something that runs well on old commodity hardware can run well on most existing hardware, reducing the need for hardware upgrades. But my point is, running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you only value ecology. At best, you could emulate old HW with much more efficient modern HW, and integrate most of the system on a single low power chip.

heinrich5991 3y ago
> But my point is, running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you only value ecology. Do you have a calculation for that? It's not entirely clear that this is the case if you factor in that the old hardware already exists and new hardware needs to be produced.
- MayeulC 3y ago
  I will try to answer later with actual math, though a commenter above did a rough estimate. I would think it pays back relatively quickly. Moreover, this approach cannot really scale as old hardware and parts is scarce, and using it at a larger scale would make it scarcer (due to more normal failures). That's if you look specifically at one kind of system, but I believe the real value is in making code portable across a range of low-power systems, including recent and old ones. You're also looking at it from the perspective of not needing new hardware, but I already have both my phone and my Steam Deck. Incidentally, I bought a Steam Deck in part because it was cheaper than a GPU upgrade for my desktop PC, while being more powerful and efficient than my current setup. My PC has been collecting dust as I boot the same disk on my Steam Deck, at 1/10-30 the power enveloppe. As an added benefit, I don't have to turn this high-power system on while it's 35C in the room.

indolering 3y ago

> I imagine it would be much more straightforward to port pretty much any indie games to consoles like Xbox original onwards, PS3 onwards, Wii onwards, maybe Windows 7 average desktop and notebooks (lots of indies already use older direct x and are compatible with windows 7 , Not a game developer, but given the lack of ports between current gen gaming systems I would assume that it is not straightforward. Sure, a game engine will magically pump out your game for different backends but even supporting Vulkan and Metal results in much gnawing and mashing of teeth (and a lack of games on Apple hardware). Then there is the developer ergonomics. I know that I hate having to write code to maintain compatibility for even 5 year old standards. Each GPU and game engine is also a unique clusterfuck of incompatibility and subtle bugs that crash the shit out of games. If you want to support that old hardware, you will need to test on the actual hardware. Why bother with all that when there is no money in it and your team just wants to move on from a project that already took 5 years of their lives to develop? Forward compatibility is something I strongly agree with but backwards compatibility is a logistical nightmare.

Whatever13 3y ago
Forward compatibility is promising. - The computing systems are kinda standardized now, with consoles and pcs using X64-86 architecture, Xbox using a optimized windows os, and PS4 (almost certainly PS5 too) running BSD. Industry standards would bridge the gap even more, like making open software mandatory (everyone just incorporates their code). More companies investing in FOSS like Vulkan instead of the proprietary ones would be helpfull too. - The proton software on Linux makes a compatibility layer between the game and a newer system, and you can choose an older version. I think we could eventually just leave the ''XYZ Game of the Year'' v.2.1.4 and never touch it again, and future gamers would at most have to select the proton layer version and vulkan-directx-other game engine version of the game release time, and it could be automatically done in the instalation.

runlevel1 3y ago

> PS3 onwards By most accounts the PS3 was not fun to write software for due to its unusual specialized processing units.

anthk 3y ago

The PS3 sucked. OTOH, targeting at most GL 2.1 for a game would be one of the best tools to avoid buying new machines.