Published on by Nayar

AMD vs nvidia vs Intel

2020 is kinda exciting year for computer hardware. AMD has been killing it.

But would I recommend an AMD for a laptop? Hmm, I’ve been looking at eGPU systems lately. It does require a thunderbolt port to work with. Unfortunately thunderbolt is an Intel exclusive technology for now. You will thus not be able to use your ultra light AMD laptop as a real gaming monster. I don’t know if USB4 works with eGPUs. Anyways, always confirm that your Intel laptop does have a thunderbolt port. My Asus Zenbook has no thunderbolt.

On the GPU side, the 6900XT seems to be on par with the RTX 3090. But most machine learning libraries such as tensorflow are optimised to be running on CUDA/nvidia. I hope the machine learning community start using AMD GPUs as well. Maybe it is AMD which is keeping some APIs close or something. But I hope machine learning takes on AMD GPUs as well. It’ll be awesome.

Will I be able to afford all these techs? I don’t think i’ll be building a PC anytime soon as I don’t have the money and space in my house to be able to get a huge TV for entertainment.

Published on by Nayar

Enabling Nvidia Hybrid Graphics on Linux

I was going to activate my NVIDIA 940MX to play some Tomb Raider when I saw that nvidia-settings has a new option: on-demand.

Activating the option allows you to run only selected applications on the discrete GPU. How to activate that on Steam?

Let’s take an example of Tomb Raider:

Step 1: Open steam and go to Library

Step 2: Go on game settings:

Step 3: Set launch option as follows:

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia %command%

And voila! Next time you open the game, it’ll run on your discrete GPU. You can check it with nvidia-smi

 

Published on by Nayar

Olive Oil

Ship-wrecked on our shores

Governed by dinosaurs

Knight in shining armour

The sheep got a voice

3820 gave you their support

The Dinosaurs heard your roar!

No one thought you could be bought

Lo! Dinosaurs got themselves a knight-shepherd

Sheep are giving away their wool to have the oil soaked

Meanwhile The Dinosaurs are after the insurance money…

 

Published on by Nayar

Review: Awei A780BL Bluetooth Headset

The Unboxing

The box doesn’t feel cheap at all. When you open the box, you get the Bluetooth headphones first. Underneath, you’ll find a micro-usb cable, aux cable and a manual thrown in.

The Sound

The bass isn’t impressive in any way but I find it adequate. I’d say it’s very balanced and does it’s job.

The Microphone

Oh dear it sucks. Everyone complained about a loud static noise in the mic during remote work meetings. But they could understand when I talk though. Weird.

The Comfort

First time wearing your headset is a real pain as it really presses on your head. I tried to stretch my previous Bluedio headset by hands and that’s how I broke it. I stretch the AWEI headset using its box itself everyday for 2 weeks before it became somewhat comfortable.

The Cons

  1. First worlds problems? I cannot connect the headset to both my laptop and mobile phone. If i get a call e.g. i’ll have to disconnect it from my laptop and connect to my phone manually. My previous Bluedio T2 didn’t have this issue.
  2. If you shake the headset, the right cup has some parts moving in it. It’ll not be possible to wear this while you workout e.g.

Conclusion

For the price of Rs 1500 in Mauritius (saw it being sold at Rs 1000 too), I think it’s an okay headset. Not great but also not bad. In times where international ecommerce websites are slow to ship, I’m okay with it.

Published on by Nayar

Rs 1333: The Amount of Money Mauritian Car Owners Lost

I’m a poor guy. I buy the cheapest car insurance i.e. Third Party cover at Rs 4,500 per year. I pay Road Tax on a yearly basis at Rs 3500. That makes a total of Rs 8000 I have to pay just for the papers to keep my car road legal.

During the government imposed lock-down due to Covid-19, all our cars, except for essential service workers’, were parked. It stayed so for 2 months. If we were to put a number on it, we paid Rs 1,333 for nothing.

Rs 8000 / 12 months * 2 months = Rs 1,333

Now if you have Premium Insurance policies, this amount will be much higher. My car’s insurance and Road Tax expired in March 2020. Today I got them renewed. No free months given 🙁

Should we fight to get this money back in some form or another or it’s not worth it?

For the rich, Rs 1,333 is nothing.
 
For someone with minimum salary, that’s 13% of his salary being given away.