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Latest Comments by Samsai
AMD announces Zen 2 design is 'complete', Zen+ now 'sampling' and more
8 Jan 2018 at 12:26 pm UTC

Quoting: EikeAFAICT, it's not stored in the cache, but by accessing some memory, this is loaded into the cache, and by checking afterwards how fast you can access the same meory (memory you're allowed to read), you can tunnel data through from the illegitimate code to legitimate code. (Nice technique that is...) Even if you would flush all cache touched by speculatively executed code, you probably could do it the other way around: Prefetch into cache, make speculative execution, and if the data vanishes from cache, you've got information from the dark side.
Obviously cache was a mistake.

AMD announces Zen 2 design is 'complete', Zen+ now 'sampling' and more
8 Jan 2018 at 12:06 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: BrisseAnd yes of course you could make a chip completely immune. Just get rid of speculative execution, as that's what these attacks exploit. That will come at a performance cost however.
I don't think the speculative execution has to be entirely removed to make CPUs immune. I am not an expert but from what I gathered the issue is that after code has been speculatively executed the result is stored in the cache even if the CPU guessed wrong and ran the wrong code, not to mention code that it didn't even have privileges to run. If these results were cleared from the cache when the CPU takes a wrong turn it would at least protect data that isn't supposed to be in the cache right now. And obviously the speculative execution must follow security protocol and not rush ahead and think of the privileges later (looking at you, Intel).

Overall I think this is a point where CPU engineers need to start thinking in terms of "smart" and not purely in the terms of "fast". And if it can't be made smart then make it simple so that you know what the CPU is doing and what it's capable of doing.

Intel launches their new CPUs with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics along with two new 'NUC' mini-pc models
8 Jan 2018 at 11:18 am UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: minjI know it takes years.. but really I can't help but feel they should focus on fixing their existing shit first rather than release new shit that meltdowns.
Well, the existing stuff essentially cannot be fixed, the flaws run too deep. They can be mitigated but ultimately entirely new designs are needed which indeed takes a good while to get going. These CPUs were announced a while back and designed even further back so just canning them until the architecture is fixed is probably a big waste of money.

Although it is a good point to bring up that these CPUs are likely just as susceptible to Meltdown and Spectre as their previous offerings. Personally I wouldn't upgrade my CPU in a good while to ensure an upgrade to an architecture that has these flaws fixed.

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
4 Jan 2018 at 9:01 am UTC

Quoting: StrangerThank you guys for the clarification on AMD drivers. We're trying to get everything working smoothly on the radeonsi driver, since that's the modern driver which gets the most support.

Also, my beard is currently at a gentle Fedora level.
Just to drive the point home, here's the statistics GOL has gathered on the driver used by the masses on AMD GPUs:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/render_chart.php?id=323&type=stats

So yeah, just targeting Mesa gives you 90% coverage of Linux gamers using AMD GPUs and the 10% are likely willing to switch to Mesa when they realize they can install the OpenCL components of PRO separately.

Valve hands out VAC bans for having 'catbot' in your Linux username (updated: they're not)
1 Jan 2018 at 10:35 pm UTC

Quoting: johndoeMaybe I should have used "sambacry" (linux version of wannacry) or something even more worse like the name of this austrian dictator who killed countless jewish people in ww2 to fortify my last assumption?
"Catbot" is literally Hitler now. Logic checks out.

The Libretro Team and other emulators are being ripped off by companies trying to make a quick buck
21 Dec 2017 at 6:15 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: CSharpI respect and support Lakka / Libretro. But, I am uncertain what they're trying to achieve here. And I'm not 100% sure if they know themselves.

On one hand they say stuff like: This is final and not subject to change. Bribes are not going to work, donations are not going to work, pledges are not going to work.

And then they comment on the same post with: As long as our software's license and terms are being respected, we are willing to ally and collaborate with people, including the party involved (if they intend on doing things by the book the second time around). But we cannot let wilfull violations of Lakka's license go unanswered. We are forced to act then.

It seems like they're building a great piece of software that people want to use, and then prevent people from shipping it with their hardware. It's as if Google started suing companies for building Android smartphones and required everyone to flash the device when they bought it.

Again, I do understand that they're pissed about people abusing their license. But they're apparently not being specially approachable about the issue either.
All I'm seeing is them demanding their license agreement be respected if someone intends to ship hardware using that piece of software. Just because a piece of software has been licensed in a way that makes it difficult for you to ship a product with it doesn't mean you get to circumvent the license, it means you need to either work harder to comply with the license or find another piece of software that does the same thing without the license burden.

Sci-fi horror 'SOMA' now has an easier mode to give a different experience
4 Dec 2017 at 9:53 am UTC

Quoting: ZlopezI played Amnesia, is this something similar?
Similar mechanics; no fighting, only hiding and running away. The resource management has been taken away (no sanity, no lantern fuel, no tinderboxes, simplified inventory and no inventory puzzles). The SOMA monsters are fairly tame compared to Amnesia. I'd say it focuses more on the story and the philosophical aspects of your predicament.

NVIDIA has confirmed a driver bug resulting in a loss of performance on Linux
3 Dec 2017 at 4:55 pm UTC

Quoting: salamanderrake
Quoting: Samsai
Quoting: salamanderrake
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: oldgarolmaooo...good time to move away from NVIDIA!
Well, no. Let's not pretend Mesa is perfect. All software has bugs and regressions.
Well, no. Let's not pretend Mesa is a *competitor*. Leaving NVIDIA because of this bug is like ditching your car because you got a flat tire and instead using a skateboard.
In this day and age what you said is nothing but FUD. Please update your preconceptions.
When mesa updates their performance then I'll update preconceptions.
It seems you're already out of date.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=16way-gpu-aug17&num=1 [External Link]

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nv-radeon-win10ubuntu&num=1 [External Link]

NVIDIA has confirmed a driver bug resulting in a loss of performance on Linux
2 Dec 2017 at 5:56 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: salamanderrake
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: oldgarolmaooo...good time to move away from NVIDIA!
Well, no. Let's not pretend Mesa is perfect. All software has bugs and regressions.
Well, no. Let's not pretend Mesa is a *competitor*. Leaving NVIDIA because of this bug is like ditching your car because you got a flat tire and instead using a skateboard.
In this day and age what you said is nothing but FUD. Please update your preconceptions.

NVIDIA has confirmed a driver bug resulting in a loss of performance on Linux
1 Dec 2017 at 1:27 pm UTC

Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: SamsaiHow many games even are there that use compatibility profiles or otherwise non-standard OpenGL?
Maybe it's not about games. A lot of professional software uses compatibility profiles. So does X-Plane.
Until Amd Mesa supports compat profiles , Nvidia will be the winner.

Not everybody has to deal with various workarounds to run some games.
Context says it was a comment about games.