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JEMC said:

Captain_Yuri said:

Intel demos its DG2 GPUs, confirms ARC series roadmap and development of AI super sampling tech

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-demos-its-dg2-gpus-confirms-arc-series-roadmap-and-development-of-ai-super-sampling-tech

I think what's going to happen next gen will be the battle of AI upscaling tech. It will be Nvidia's DLSS vs AMD's GSR vs Intel's own Ai upscaler. Nvidia will be leading the pack as DLSS will probably be on it's third iteration by that time and AMD will be competing against Intel as it will be their first iteration. Personally and 110% speculation but doubt RDNA 2 or the consoles will get Ai Upscaling tech. Instead imo, RDNA 3 or later will get Ai upscaling and it will be a feature of the mid-cycle refresh consoles. But we will see. It could also be that it will work with RDNA 2 and consoles but it will just be slower.

In that theoretical situation, both AMD and Nvidia would have advantage. Nvidia because it would have already two gens of experience, and AMD because they'll probably go open source and allow their solution to work on Nvidia and maybe Intel (we know too little about Intel's ones to know how they'll work) cards, which so far is going better than most of us expected for its FSR solution.

Captain_Yuri said:

Well the bill isn't about digital stores getting taxed. It's about a lot more issues:

"The terms of the bill state that any company whose app store controls more than 50 million users, such as Apple and Google, would not require developers to use its own payment systems. Additionally, these developers would be allowed to distribute their apps to alternative app stores. Senator Blackburn says that Apple’s and Google’s practices discourage a fair marketplace."

"Companies like Apple would also not take action against developers that distribute their apps elsewhere. Such firms would also need to provide these developers access to operating system interfaces, hardware and software features, and more. "

I think they can make small form factor PCs that are also upgradable as they can get OEM discounts for a lot of the parts. I think they can adjust the prices so that it will make small amounts of profits for them as there's a lot of leeway in todays market. Also most PCs these days that get shipped to places have certain packaging material inside the PCs to help prevent any damage. If small companies like iBuyPower can figure it out, I am sure Valve can.

Well, going by the first quote, I can already tell you that that bill will never get approved, at least in those terms. And the reason is simple: it would also apply to other business like Netflix or Amazon, and they know it and they'll do everything they can to stop it from happening.

As for Valve going OEM and battling the ones like Dell, HP, etc., they're faily new when it comes to building/assembling hardware and lack the contacts and contracts the others have. I really doubt they'd get to have the same discounts as the other assemblers... specially given how fishy strange has Dell being with their CPU-GPU pairings as of late, reminding us of what happened with Intel all those years ago.

There's another problem as well. Most of the OEM builders have different plants around the world to build and deliver its products in different regions. That allows them to get better models that suit the needs of teh different markets, but also limit the distance their systems will have to travel until destiny, thus limiting the chances of them getting damaged or something going loose. Valve doesn't have any of that and no matter how much you try, there will always be systems that get damaged during transport, and the longer it is, the bigger that amount will be.

So for Valve to actually go this route, they'll have to invest a lot of time and money, to fight a price increase due to mining that we don't know how long will last given how several goverments have already expressing their intentions to limit it, including China itself.

Will it be worth to Valve to take this risk?

Yea that's true. Plus Intel's drivers will be the biggest question and adoption of their Ai tech will be the second biggest. Mainly because unlike Nvidia who has a ton of market share on PC and unlike AMD who is powering hardware on both PC and consoles, Intel's dGPUs will effectively be starting from 0 as I doubt any of the devs even look into their iGPUs when building their games.

And yea, it won't be very easy for Valve to make it work but we have already seen that with the Steam Deck, they are able to build a PC that's not only a portable handheld, but it's cheaper and faster than most if not every PC that Dell/HP and etc were able to put at both $399 and $529 price range. So in theory, Valve should be able to do that with a desktop PC as well since they do seem to have OEM contacts. It's just a matter of not making as much profit as the usual OEMs. And I wouldn't say Valve should sell their PCs in every region, especially not at the beginning. They should test the waters like they are doing with Steam Deck by rolling out in a few regions and if there's enough interest, they should release it on more regions.

I do think that it will be worth the risk for Valve. Not only would it introduce more people to Steam OS regardless of whether or not they put Windows on it but I think if the current prices continue, many people will simply buy a console which will mean less sales for Valve.