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Comment by tadbit | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the design decision to use x86_64.

It's not covered on their site, AFAIK. [1][2]

It's not running Windows.

Most software designed for Linux can be built for ARM.

And, it's being billed as a next gen platform (by creating and using the term VRC) while using an older generation technology (x86).

With the amount of power required to run that chipset this device will either require a massive battery or to always be plugged into a power source, which effectively kills any appeal for me.

All of this said, I'm glad they're doing this. VR/AR in the professional workstation space is very exciting, I'm glad someone is focusing on it.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/how-we-designed-the-simula-one/

[2] https://simulavr.com/blog/technical-overview/

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I don't consider ARM better unless you have billions to spend on custom silicon like Apple.

The power consumption is inline with any other ultra-low-power x86 (~15W TDP for the CPU). That's pretty comparable to a Snapdragon XR2 with ~10W TDP and worse performance.

Users would want to use proprietary apps that are only compiled for x86. Emulation for those on ARM is not particularly feasible for any acceptable performance. If you're buying a laptop now, you would not buy an ARM device.

That being said, I'm not married to x86. But I don't think ARM is the future, either.

> I don't consider ARM better unless you have billions to spend on custom silicon like Apple.

It's better when you need lower power utilisation and physically smaller footprints.

Apple isn't the only name in the ARM game, and I'm not suggesting that you should be designing and manufacturing your own ARM chipsets.

> The power consumption is inline with any other ultra-low-power x86 (~15W TDP for the CPU). That's pretty comparable to a Snapdragon XR2 with ~10W TDP and worse performance.

Which is all incredibly high for something that's portable.

If a user is required to have the headset plugged in for continuous use, it might as well just be a regular VR headset connected to a separate PC.

> Users would want to use proprietary apps that are only compiled for x86.

With this argument the Simula One should be running Windows instead of SimulaOS. Most Linux based applications already work on ARM or can be recompiled for it.

> Emulation for those on ARM is not particularly feasible for any acceptable performance.

I'm not suggesting emulation should be used.

> If you're buying a laptop now, you would not buy an ARM device.

I would and have bought ARM based notebooks. MacBook Air (M1), PineBook Pro, various Chromebooks.

I still don't understand the decision to stick with x86 on this.

The CPU performance should not be as important as GPU. How is the i7-1165G7 GPU vs XR2 GPU in terms of performance and power consumption?

Iris Xe is higher performance, about 50% more in FLOPs than the Adreno 650. Don't have data on power consumption separate from the CPU, though.

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