• @wildlyfist
      link
      121 hours ago

      I guess if you disable the computer’s fan, yes.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        721 hours ago

        Greetings fellow time-traveler. What model of entropy-reversing computer fan do you use?

        • @wildlyfist
          link
          111 hours ago

          Why reversing enthropy? I just throw the computer in the trash when it burns off so I can buy a new one every month. Mass consumer society is so greaaat.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    142 days ago

    If you’re using an older LCD screen, turning off the lamp uses more electricity than leaving it on

    • @YoFrodo
      link
      433 days ago

      Yep, virtual lights work the same as real lights

      • @flames5123
        link
        273 days ago

        If they’re not looked at, they don’t consume as much electricity. So there’s that difference.

        • Jolteon
          link
          fedilink
          110 hours ago

          The problem with those virtual lamps is that when you look away, the light turns off but the heat doesn’t.

        • @IonAddis
          link
          English
          15
          edit-2
          3 days ago

          If you have your back to them, they don’t emit light either!

          Edit: Well, reflections, for you with the FANCY GPUs…

          • @flames5123
            link
            0
            edit-2
            2 days ago

            Exactly what I thought while I was commenting that. The reflections are what made me rewrite it 😅

            • @JcbAzPx
              link
              English
              32 days ago

              That depends on how the game does reflections. In some games they have a mirrored room with an identical but different light for the reflection.

  • don
    link
    fedilink
    76
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    And by convention, all vehicles in video games are electric.

  • @friend_of_satan
    link
    English
    442 days ago

    Which is really unexpected if you’re looking at an oil lamp.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          22 days ago

          not that specific. most modern displays are oled, and most efficient games use prebaked lighting. the average gamer probably plays on an oled display, and has a game with prebaked lighting.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            17 hours ago

            Looks like we’re from a different galaxies, as I never seen oled display for PC in my eyes(I know they exist, but they are extremely rare where I am)

        • @bitjunkie
          link
          32 days ago

          You made a blanket statement. There are exceptions.

  • @joel1974
    link
    42 days ago

    Did you know that characters in video games have an electrical current to keep them alive just like real people?

  • @rhacer
    link
    English
    313 days ago

    More interestingly, lamps in video games use the same amount of real electricity if they are on or off.

    • Da Bald Eagul
      link
      fedilink
      383 days ago

      Not necessarily, on OLED displays (which are definitely a thing for desktop computers and TVs) a light that’s turned off is using less power because the pixels the lamp is displayed on (and the ones around it too) are dimmer.

      • @CanaryWhiskey
        link
        193 days ago

        YELLS IN GPU VERTEX PIPELINE

        that consumes electricity. ever think about the poor gpu? about how your words hurt its feelings?

        jokes aside the power to process a few hundred vertices every frame is insignificant

      • @Cornelius_Wangenheim
        link
        42 days ago

        And traditional LCDs with a backlight use more power for darkness. The LCD is transparent by default and turns opaque/black when a voltage is applied.

      • @Psythik
        link
        12 days ago

        Actually, the pixels go completely black and do not consume any electricity at all in that state.

        You might be thinking of early OLEDs, which had to stay on at all times to prevent blur/smearing. But panel manufacturers solved that problem a few years ago. Don’t remember exactly when the change happened, but I remember first seeing true black OLEDs sometime around 2017/2018.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          92 days ago

          When a lamp turns off it doesn’t become a black hole. Previous commenter was correct, though I appreciate your info about OLED

        • Da Bald Eagul
          link
          fedilink
          12 days ago

          The light doesn’t become true black, it’s dark but not a complete nothingness. So yes, it’ll still consume power.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        02 days ago

        OLED displays (which are definitely a thing for desktop computers and TVs)

        Probably not for most people, due to cost. More realistic for portable devices where battery saving is a thing, as it doesn’t seem like there’s much mainstream push for OLED (or similar equivalent) monitors that aren’t top-end (on newegg, I could only find 240Hz options).

        That and often search results are for other panel technologies (IPS/TN/VA). Lower spec stuff seems to exist but you really gotta scrape the bottom of the barrel (portable monitors) to find some niche product.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            12 days ago

            TVs very much so

            Very much so… what? A quick glance, they’re expensive AF (riddled with “smart” features and now AI, gigantic on top of 4K etc) too.

            Sure I guess there’s actually a chance a few impulsively bought one at a big-box store (or “on sale” for the full price of a non-OLED TV), but it’s more likely they bought “LED” which is marketing speak for local dimming (not even close to OLED turning pixels off).

            • @A_Porcupine
              link
              1
              edit-2
              2 days ago

              I’m not sure sub-£550 ($700) with reasonable sizes (42"), really counts at expensive AF anymore (not cheap but not expensive AF). But each to their own.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                1
                edit-2
                1 day ago

                Alright sure, maybe. But LCD screens are ubiquitous, and most people probably aren’t looking to buy more displays. In a similar vein, early 4K adopters probably don’t have much reason… if they can just be happy with what they already have.

                It is good enough to be the last thing to upgrade, especially looking at the chunk of cost it’d be when lumped in with PC/console cost. (also, selling is probably not for everyone even if less-modern HDTVs had any resale value, and at ~42" you might even not get any quick takers even if free)

                A quick look at the Steam survey, ~56% of users are still using 1080p and ~20% are using 1440p. If OLED is almost exclusive to 4K and/or 240Hz many will likely continue to ignore it.

                Also if you don’t have the hardware+content, it also doesn’t really make sense. That’s additional cost, and you may even need to look specifically for content created that works well with OLED (if not created with it in mind). Higher-speeed broadband availability/cost and streaming enshittification(+encoding quality) may be factors here too.

                And burn-in seems to still be a thing, at least with some types/models.

                So I see this as a long way off for mass adoption, similar to VR. And more to my point that it’s more of an exception than a norm.

                EDIT: Also just saw QDEL, seems a year away still but may fix burn-in and cost (especially if it is pushed to lower end, print manufacturing may allow it). Though who knows, I’m also seeing tandem OLED (except it seems to make cost worse).

                • @A_Porcupine
                  link
                  1
                  edit-2
                  15 hours ago

                  A few things:

                  • I disagree that LCD is good enough, especially for living room gaming. It is the best and most significant upgrade I’ve ever done, by a long way.
                  • In terms of Steam Survey, again no arguments from me, oled monitors are rare, I was arguing that TVs are not.
                  • There isn’t such thing as content that works well with OLED, everything looks significantly better, especially with HDR, which almost everything supports and has done for a significant period of time.
                  • As someone that has been using an OLED TV for 5+ years, burn-in really isn’t an issue, there’s not a trace of burn-in on either of my TVs, or any of my portable devices with OLEDs. The only time I’ve ever experienced burn-in on an OLED was a Nexus 5, which is so long ago, that it’s almost irrelevant. In the case of the Nexus 5, the only reason it ended up with burn-in is because I enabled the developer option to keep the screen on at all times, resulting in the status bar burning into the screen. All modern OLED displays take burn-in into account and run screen cleaning occasionally, which isn’t noticeable as the screen just appears a black. So unless someone is running a news channel with a static logo 24/7 on the screen, they’re not going to have issues with burn-in. It’s worth noting I have an OLED TV on my desk too (that one was indeed on sale, for ~400 IIRC), and that has static content such as an Apple logo (work laptop 😞), on it for hours each day, with no burn-in.
    • @flames5123
      link
      33 days ago

      Highly depends on the rendering engine and if you’re looking at it, as it could unrender if you look away, meaning less energy used.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    293 days ago

    Did you know that if we took all the rhinos left on the planet, put them in a rocket ship and launched it towards the sun, the would travel 91.511 million mi, and die along the way?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      353 days ago

      Akshually we currently have no rocket with enough power to launch that much mass towards the Sun. People always assume because the Sun has a lot of gravity, stuff moves toward it automatically. But when launching from Earth that’s not the case. Earth is in orbit around the Sun, in order to get to the Sun you need to lose all that energy. Since rhino’s are heavy af you’d need a mighty rocket indeed.

      We could with some effort maybe launch one small rhino, say 600-700kg towards the Sun. And it requires some fancy ass orbital mechanics. So it would travel way more than 91.511 million miles before ending up in the Sun. This rhino would probably not survive the launch, which is just as well given its destination and travel time.

      • Aedis
        link
        83 days ago

        While getting a rocket or probe to hit the sun smack in the middle sounds hard to do, you can get obliterated by it with much less delta-v.

        You need to get to the Earth’s escape velocity and just cleverly align the angle of escape so that you get an eccentric enough heliocentric orbit that you’d end up some 6 million kms close to the sun. Anything closer than that is literally overkill.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        22 days ago

        Also we don’t launch towards the sun, we deorbit by burning in the opposite direction of where the earth is moving towards.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    122 days ago

    If the game is demanding enough they also consume the same amount of electricity, maybe even more.