jungius Member Sep 5, 2021 3,509 Many peeps here maybe haven't heard about this before, but last year Microsoft post some interesting study case about the optimization of some of their flagship titles in regards of sustainability and power consumption Gaming Sustainability Minecraft Case Studies - Microsoft Game Dev Case studies from Minecraft for gaming sustainability so studios can see the work performed in other games to lower gaming power consumption at no cost to gameplay fidelity learn.microsoft.com Gaming Sustainability The Elder Scrolls Online Case Study - Microsoft Game Dev Case study from The Elder Scrolls Online for gaming sustainability so studios can see the work performed in other games to lower gaming power consumption at no cost to gameplay fidelity learn.microsoft.com Gaming Sustainability Halo Infinite Case Studies - Microsoft Game Dev Case studies from Halo Infinite for gaming sustainability so studios can see the work performed in other games to lower gaming power consumption at no cost to gameplay fidelity learn.microsoft.com Gaming Sustainability Call of Duty Case Study - Microsoft Game Dev Case study from Call of Duty for gaming sustainability so studios can see the work performed in other games to lower gaming power consumption at no cost to gameplay fidelity learn.microsoft.com They did power optimization of those games by lowering the render resolution and framerates of these games (typically when players opening the menu UI) to achieve big lower power consumption. After gold roads expansion released, ESO got a really downgraded menu UI where on console it render at 30fps (it was always 60fps prior of this patch) and the change garner quite backlash from the game community because the gameplay-to-menu transition felt jarring and choppy from 60fps to 30fps. So Era, personally, would you lower your game settings for environmental causes? Will it really work, or it is futile because one person gaming footprints are drop in oceans compared to other things? I am torn lmao  vixolus Prophet of Truth Member Sep 22, 2020 69,739 Yes* selectively Limit framerates and lower settings in menus, lobbies, in settings, etc, sure. In-game, though? No. The smart, dynamic 'eco' modes the games offer in these case studies is smart.  Blue Hedgehog Member Mar 7, 2018 219 Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets   Vexii Member Oct 31, 2017 3,012 UK OOOOH So this touches very much on what I've been personally thinking about this stuff for a long time, and it's primarily around the fact that computer GPUs using 600+ watts of power is a HUGE, FUCKING PROBLEM and an utter moral failing by GPU manufacturers to not limit the amount of power being used to play games. This isn't an individualised issue, in the same way that individuals recycling won't save the world and everyone turning their lights off before leaving a room won't change how we globally use power. It's a failing of institutions and providers of technology and services to self-limit all in the name of rising Capital. (I personally limit the power output of my own computing devices btw, DLSS-performance mode and 40-60fps caps, but only because it feels like it makes more sense than 100% output all the time)  Cartwynd Shinra Employee Member Sep 14, 2023 683 This is way down the list so no.   I am a Bird Member Oct 31, 2017 8,193 Such things are nice but really are the rearranging the deck chairs of environmentalism. You want to start with the biggest then work your way down. For example you could have individuals recycle plastic bottles, or you could just deal with the guy manufacturing a billion plastic bottles.  Duxxy3 Member Oct 27, 2017 24,500 USA Between RTSS or Nvidia control panel I usually set a framerate limit to most games. It's a lower power draw, less heat produced and has fewer bugs than a completely unlocked framerate. I also tend to pick parts that are great frame per watt as well. Not necessarily the lowest wattage.   nsilvias Member Oct 25, 2017 29,525 itd be better if chip makers stopped pushing turbo so hard for 5 to 10 percent perf increase for 50 percent more power usage. its not the consumers fault they push their chips so hard they are inefficient i have turbo off on computer and i barely lost any perf but its runs quiter, cooler, and more power efficient  NaikoGames Member Aug 1, 2022 3,699 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... yeah, i think this is a novel cause but in the big scheme of things companies like Microsoft should start doing much bigger changes before this one   TechnoSyndro Member May 15, 2019 3,246 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah I can't engage with this kind of hypothetical situation when I know billionaires and corporations are the biggest factor in the destruction of our environment   Duxxy3 Member Oct 27, 2017 24,500 USA Lukewarm take: Ray tracing is bad for the environment.   JoJoBae Member Oct 25, 2017 1,920 Layton, UT Sure. I already do this during the summer to save myself some money on cooling my apartment down.   Praedyth Member Feb 25, 2020 8,428 Brazil Sure. I gotta save for Katy Perry's next trip to orbit.   Drachen Member May 3, 2021 8,368 No. It's on the richies destroying the planet to make changes, not us just scraping by trying to enjoy life.   RayCharlizard Member Nov 2, 2017 4,304 This is up there with paper straws in the realm of "quit blaming me for mega corporations failings".   Aldo Member Mar 19, 2019 1,919 I already do this, either by undervolting/power limiting or by refusing to buy 600w graphic cards. Electricity is precious (and expensive where I live).   OP OP jungius Member Sep 5, 2021 3,509 Praedyth said: Sure. I gotta save for Katy Perry's next trip to orbit. Click to expand... Click to shrink... sexy confident so intelligent she is heaven sent so soft, so strong  Huey Member Oct 27, 2017 15,580 Absolutely. The graphics arms race currently is diminishing returns for greatly increased energy/resource cost I'd like to see some meaningful analysis that is is scaleable, would have uptake by major players, and that is would have a meaningful footprint though  5taquitos Member Oct 27, 2017 14,245 OR Did Microsoft post any case studies on Copilot's impact?   StrappingYoungLance Member Oct 27, 2017 7,629 Melbourne, Australia Smart selective limits that help ease power consumption sound good to me. If they don't compromise the gameplay experience we're all good.   poptire Avatar Wrecking Crew The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 14,733 Yes, and this is what keeps me from investing in a modern PC.   Sabin Member Oct 25, 2017 6,011 No, not really. How about we limit billionaires, multi millionaires and big corps first before we start with the general population. Vexii said: OOOOH So this touches very much on what I've been personally thinking about this stuff for a long time, and it's primarily around the fact that computer GPUs using 600+ watts of power is a HUGE, FUCKING PROBLEM and an utter moral failing by GPU manufacturers to not limit the amount of power being used to play games. This isn't an individualised issue, in the same way that individuals recycling won't save the world and everyone turning their lights off before leaving a room won't change how we globally use power. It's a failing of institutions and providers of technology and services to self-limit all in the name of rising Capital. (I personally limit the power output of my own computing devices btw, DLSS-performance mode and 40-60fps caps, but only because it feels like it makes more sense than 100% output all the time) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Researchers have been raising general alarms about AI's hefty energy requirements over the past few months. But a peer-reviewed analysis published this week in Joule is one of the first to quantify the demand that is quickly materializing. A continuation of the current trends in AI capacity and adoption are set to lead to NVIDIA shipping 1.5 million AI server units per year by 2027. These 1.5 million servers, running at full capacity, would consume at least 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually—more than what many small countries use in a year, according to the new assessmen Click to expand... Click to shrink... I think the world will survive a few 5090s compared to that.  Last edited: Yesterday at 11:53 PM dalq Member Feb 13, 2018 1,580 "Yall better play your dotas on minimum settings so I can fly my plane around the world without guilt, peasants"   senj Member Nov 6, 2017 8,505 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... It is pointless when we have billionaires in private jets and large corporations generating the overwhelming majority of pollution on the planet. But of course here comes one of those big corporations, Microsoft, whose dogshit AI initiatives consume incalculably more power than every high refresh monitor and gaming computer in America combined, to reframe a problem that needs a collective solution enforced by public policy (which they don't want because it would require them to give up this shit) as a problem which individuals are supposed to solve by making little adjustments like this at the margins (which will accomplish precisely fuck all). It's fucking ridiculous.  JigglesBunny Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 35,731 Chicago We have millions of people literally fighting for a shot at $2,000+ GPUs that generate 600+ watts of power on their own. This is never happening.  TheCongressman Member Oct 25, 2017 3,395 That's absurd, but I'd do it if it actually mattered. Instead, lets dismantle all the ai data farms stealing people's work and sucking up water and energy.  Mauricio_Magus Member Oct 25, 2017 15,569 I care deeply about the environment, I drive as little as I can, I'm a minimalist, I work from home, I've cut almost all my meat consumption(I quit red meat 100% already), I'm not using AI, I recycle, I don't plan on having children, I advocate for walk-able cities... etc. I also don't buy the most powerful PCs/devices even when I could afford them because I am happy with 60fps in games so maybe I'm already doing this in a way, but yeah at the end of the day I'm not going to make my PC/gaming experience worse than 60fps/1440p/medium or high settings. You'd have to prove to me that it would do a significant difference for starters as well. I can run games at 120 and I could set it to 60fps, I'm okay with doing that, but I won't go lower even for "menus". I feel like the one thing I do that's not environmentally friendly is that I have my AC and PC on almost all day long, it's the one thing I'm going to give myself permission to do. I already assume that I'm doing more than most people that are in this forum and with my buying power. And like others have said, we need to stop corporations not individuals, even if I do appreciate individual action as well. Also if it's things that limit power use while not impacting performance then sure, kinda like how I use battery saver on my phone all the time and I don't see any difference.  KillLaCam Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 15,713 Seoul Nah US Military and Billionaires annihilate anything gamers™ could do. I try not to be wasteful and stuff but this is super minimal   Puddington Member Nov 2, 2017 343 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... And flying into "Space"  vixolus Prophet of Truth Member Sep 22, 2020 69,739 I feel like y'all are missing that these case studies are on the game level applied by the developers as defaults to minimize impact to the experience while saving energy to the users at scale, across the board, with some of the most popular games on the planet. This isn't (just) some kind of "please reduce your personal carbon footprint by turning texture quality to medium from high while billionaires fly private jets" situation. Obviously that kind of waste and pollution is absurd and Microsoft has their own issues with energy usage re: AI, etc. This doesn't absolve them of that and isn't really trying to. Having tools available for developers to incorporate in their games to seamlessly reduce energy usage at scale seems pretty good. It's like implementing accessibility settings, something that should be encouraged and not overlooked, or made easier to implement as it is a net benefit to everyone.  Angst Member Oct 27, 2017 4,145 No. This is so far down on the list it's insane. If this planet is going to burn anyway because of private jets I'm at least going to run games at a proper framerate until humanity fizzles out.  JasonV Member Oct 25, 2017 3,032 No, lets stop offloading responsibility to consumers.   Dekuman Member Oct 27, 2017 20,685 Probably the wrong place to ask.   brawndolicious Member Oct 27, 2017 5,992 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... Never just say this, lets do the math. The average console has a max power draw of around 200 watts. Pulling back the graphics during the non-gameplay idle time typically leads to savings of around 10% - 50%, so lets say 25% which would be around 50 watts. If you assume the average gamer has about an hour of idle time per console per week (might be a high estimate but it's a round number): 50 watts * 1 hour idle time per week * 52 weeks = 2.6 Killowatt-hours per year. That means 2.6 Gigawatt-hours per year for every one million consoles. I would guess that there are probably at least 500 million devices mainly used for gaming around the world (~250 million consoles and about the same in PCs). So that makes it 1.3 terawatt-hours. In the US, every killowatt-hour of electricity produces about 0.81 pounds of CO2 and costs an average of 15.95 cents. So assuming those values are about the same globally, 1.3 terrawatt-hours would equal about 1.05 billion pounds (478.64 million kilograms) of CO2 and about $207 million US dollars of cost. That's in one year. A gulfstream business jet is about 444 grams per mile so that would be about 1 billion miles in a business jet. A big plane like a 737 produces 90 kilograms of CO2 per mile so that would be about 5.3 million miles of jumbo jet travel. Even if you divide the idle time per week by 10 and assume gamers spend an average of five minutes per week in menus (too low imo), all these numbers are still going to be pretty huge. Somebody please check if I made any big arithmetic mistakes because I didn't expect it be that big of a deal.  Captain of Outer Space Come Sale Away With Me Member Oct 28, 2017 14,078 Me doing that would not change anything. It's the governments and huge corporations that need to make the big changes to save our world and they've proven that they don't give a shit with the help of the oil industry's money to convince them.   vixolus Prophet of Truth Member Sep 22, 2020 69,739 brawndolicious said: Never just say this, lets do the math. The average console has a max power draw of around 200 watts. Pulling back the graphics during the non-gameplay idle time typically leads to savings of around 10% - 50%, so lets say 25% which would be around 50 watts. If you assume the average gamer has about an hour of idle time per console per week (might be a high estimate but it's a round number): 50 watts * 1 hour idle time per week * 52 weeks = 2.6 Killowatt-hours per year. That means 2.6 Gigawatt-hours per year for every one million consoles. I would guess that there are probably at least 500 million devices mainly used for gaming around the world (~250 million consoles and about the same in PCs). So that makes it 1.3 terawatt-hours. In the US, every killowatt-hour of electricity produces about 0.81 pounds of CO2 and costs an average of 15.95 cents. So assuming those values are about the same globally, 1.3 terrawatt-hours would equal about 1.05 billion pounds (478.64 million kilograms) of CO2 and about $207 million US dollars of cost. That's in one year. A gulfstream business jet is about 444 grams per mile so that would be about 1 billion miles in a business jet. A big plane like a 737 produces 90 kilograms of CO2 per mile so that would be about 5.3 million miles of jumbo jet travel. Even if you divide the idle time per week by 10 and assume gamers spend an average of five minutes per week in menus (too low imo), all these numbers are still going to be pretty huge. Somebody please check if I made any big arithmetic mistakes because I didn't expect it be that big of a deal. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The Minecraft case study mentioned If you have a gaming PC, it's probably one of the most energy-intensive devices in your home. Globally, PC gaming uses about 230 terawatt hours of electricity annually – the equivalent of 59 million EU households. In the US alone, gamers consume $6 billion worth of electricity and emit about 12 million tons of CO2 per year – the equivalent of roughly 2.3 million passenger cars. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Also notes stuff about smart power efficiency settings adjusted in game improves battery life on laptops/handhelds (obviously). The shift to handheld services from the big 3 and other OEMs should def make these practices more common.  ari Member May 7, 2024 583 Biarritz yes I play 90s/00s games instead to save the environment   Jehrman The Hunter Member Dec 19, 2024 192 I mean, humanity has long since been cooked, no turning back now. There's nothing we can do to stop this train, that's for sure. "Would I" cut power in the scenario where we could turn the tide on climate change? Yea, absolutely, I would collectively contribute because in this scenario it will help save the world. In reality, though, it just doesn't matter. We're sending celebrities to space in giant dick rockets creating god knows how much pollution for fun. Private jets, data centers, cow farms, private transportation, hyper-consumerism…my power consumption wouldn't make a dent in offsetting any one of these that won't stop until the cards come crashing down.  Zips Member Oct 25, 2017 4,037 I already don't drive. I rarely keep my computer or consoles on when I'm not using them (so off at night, every night). I even turn my lights off when I leave the house even if I'm gone only for a couple of hours. I'm not going to change settings to offset my already miniscule carbon footprint. You want change, you go after AI companies, or just companies in general, and you go after the assholes jetting around everywhere or going up into "space" for tourist attractions.   DryCreek Member Oct 25, 2017 5,108 its probably easier to make electricity generation green than it is to try and reduce energy useage on the individual level. redusing FPS and stiff in menu's is worth doing but its ultimately fiddling at the edges.   Drakhyrr Member Oct 27, 2017 761 Brazil I do sometimes limit FPS, but I'm not really thinking on the planet, but rather on my power bills, temperature, fan noise, etc. Plus I barely see a difference above 80 fps or so, it begins to just blur together.   brawndolicious Member Oct 27, 2017 5,992 vixolus said: The Minecraft case study mentioned Also notes stuff about smart power efficiency settings adjusted in game improves battery life on laptops/handhelds (obviously). The shift to handheld services from the big 3 and other OEMs should def make these practices more common. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Missed that when skimming. Yeah this is all just huge, low hanging fruit. DryCreek said: its probably easier to make electricity generation green than it is to try and reduce energy useage on the individual level. redusing FPS and stiff in menu's is worth doing but its ultimately fiddling at the edges. Click to expand... Click to shrink... No, that's completely incorrect. It takes a lot more labor and money to generate the amount of renewable energy that equals the labor cost of developers essentially flipping a toggle. This is absolutely an easy win.  Kemal86 Member Oct 25, 2017 4,026 its difficult to put into words just how badly this has degraded the play experience of ESO on console. it feels like dogshit.   Siri Member Nov 7, 2017 1,322 Lowering settings for the environment? No, there's far worse culprits that are fucking up the planet. Undervolting and power capping my system to reduce my electricity bills and having a cooler, quieter room while playing games at about 5% within the same performance? Yes. I maintain about a -30 PBO offset on my CPU, and my GPU has a default power cap of 170w instead of 300w+. While actually playing games, I barely notice the difference - still bounces around 100-120fps on a VRR TV, and I still have to use upscaling for 4k, but it's using far less electricity to get there. If it's a really low power game, I'll play it on the Steam Deck - not only because I like to play games while reclined and not wearing my glasses, but because it sips about 25w while doing it. Same experience while docking the handheld as well, but the form factor is the purpose.  SP. Member Oct 27, 2017 8,287 All this so Gabe Newell can use *check notes* 6 yachts? Yeah, no.   Alexandros Member Oct 26, 2017 19,527 Blue Hedgehog said: Seems pointless when you have billionaires flying around in private jets Click to expand... Click to shrink... And wasting enormous amounts of energy on AI.  Shaman Member Jan 18, 2024 3,384 No, that's not on me at all. Go make the actual people who are responsible for it to do that instead Cheers  construct Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Jun 5, 2020 10,859 𖦹 id rather more development go into optimizing instead instead of brute forcing performance through energy eating hardware rather than elegantly designed software. this is not a lazy dev thing. i am sure dev's would love more support to focus on this.  Wolf Member Oct 25, 2017 5,663 This is fucking hilarious coming from Microsoft   Vexii Member Oct 31, 2017 3,012 UK Sabin said: No, not really. How about we limit billionaires, multi millionaires and big corps first before we start with the general population. I think the world will survive a few 5090s compared to that. Click to expand... Click to shrink... You're missing my overarching point, which is that it's both a mindset issue and a megacorp issue. The two are not mutually exclusive, and arguably feed into eachother.