"Similarly, the environmental cost of downloading video games is thought
to be higher than producing and distributing Blu-Ray disks from shops.
The first attempt to map the energy use of gaming in the US found it
produces 24 megatonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Researchers behind the
study at the University of California found US gamers use 2.4% of their household electricity – 32 terawatt hours of energy every year – which
is more than freezers or washing machines. They also showed that
streaming games uses more energy, so gaming carbon emissions may worsen
as more people adopt games where the computational work is being done
remotely rather than on individual consoles, such as with devices like Google’s Stadia.

But Hazas is more optimistic. "The carbon footprint of playing
multiplayer games like Fortnite isn’t too bad,” he says. “They are designed to be responsive so they don’t require too much data traffic.
For example, you get a position of a character on a map, or the fact someone’s shooting, but it doesn’t take too much data to communicate that.”

However, updating games is more carbon intensive. “Flagship games like Fortnite or Call of Duty require lots of updates so you're looking at
gigabytes every couple of weeks for downloads, which add new features.""

The full article detailing ALL the ways your computational devices are
killing the planet is here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think

Just remember that reading the article about how to reduce your
greenhouse gas emissions emits greenhouse gases.


--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 26 Jun 2022 21:23:19 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

"Similarly, the environmental cost of downloading video games is thought
Just remember that reading the article about how to reduce your
greenhouse gas emissions emits greenhouse gases.

Yeah, for all my concerns about the oncoming climate change
catastrophe* I have to say I'm not helping with my gaming setup. I
mean, just the four monitors consume way too much power... and then
they - combined with the CPU and GPU- generate so much heat I gotta
whisk it all away with air conditioning. And that's just the /one/
computer.

I do shutdown the computers at night, though, which is a change. I
used to leave them running 24/7. I shudder to think how many megawatts
I wasted back when I was donating all my CPU cycles to SETI@Home and
other distributed computing projects.

I've gotten better at turning the lights out after I leave a room too,
and I've even taken to putting on a sweater instead of cranking up the thermostat. Pops would be so proud (or maybe not... it only took me
HOW many decades to finally listen to his advice? ;-).

But it probably would be better if I just gave up on the whole hobby
and went back to table-top gaming again. Then again, all those books
need a lot of paper, and all the fuel used to gather the gaming group
in one place can't be doing the planet any good either...









-----
* less destruction from actual storms and more the chaos caused by
rising prices on food and water, and displaced people moving to more inhabitable areas

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am 28.06.22 um 00:16 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

Yeah, for all my concerns about the oncoming climate change
catastrophe* I have to say I'm not helping with my gaming setup. I
mean, just the four monitors consume way too much power... and then
they - combined with the CPU and GPU- generate so much heat I gotta
whisk it all away with air conditioning. And that's just the/one/
computer.

Well i have gone away from that road a long time ago. But here in Europe
where I live energy is generally more expensive. The steam deck in this
regard really is heavens sent, the 10-15 Watt it consumes is neglectable.
I alyways shun to turn on my main pc given the energy consumption
especially in summer. We have a good thermal isolation so turning the pc
on in summer is basically heating the room. Sure you can as you said
"whisk it away" with the AC (a luxury not that common where I live, we
have one because I have been doing home office way before covid) but
that is rather pointless.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, June 27, 2022 at 3:16:15 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jun 2022 21:23:19 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

"Similarly, the environmental cost of downloading video games is thought >Just remember that reading the article about how to reduce your
greenhouse gas emissions emits greenhouse gases.

Yeah, for all my concerns about the oncoming climate change
catastrophe* I have to say I'm not helping with my gaming setup. I
mean, just the four monitors consume way too much power... and then
they - combined with the CPU and GPU- generate so much heat I gotta
whisk it all away with air conditioning. And that's just the /one/
computer.

I've looked into the heat generation and it's a non-issue compared to
the carbon emissions that go into generating electricity. Of course
if you're self sufficient with solar or buy all renewable energy (actually possible where I am and we pay a pittance more for the privilege.)
then the carbon emissions while still there are about 1/20th of non- renewables.

I suppose that doesn't help a lot with the downloading part as
that's at both ends and bits in the middle which seems to be the issue.
And you can't control where the energy is coming from from those bits
beyond your house. So just don't download any new games or updates :)

On the plus side at least Etherium of the bitcoins has switched away from
the GPU and therefore power insensitive mining, not that I was planning
on trading in it.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Yeah, for all my concerns about the oncoming climate change
catastrophe* I have to say I'm not helping with my gaming setup. I
mean, just the four monitors consume way too much power... and then
they - combined with the CPU and GPU- generate so much heat I gotta
whisk it all away with air conditioning. And that's just the /one/
computer.

Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

I've looked into the heat generation and it's a non-issue compared to
the carbon emissions that go into generating electricity.

I'm pretty sure Spalls doesn't think that the heat generated by his
computer contributes to global warming directly. His point was that
all that heat gives more work for his air conditional to do, which means
he ends up using even more electricity that just his PC consumes which
causes even more greenhouse gas emissions.

On the plus side at least Etherium of the bitcoins has switched away from
the GPU and therefore power insensitive mining, not that I was planning
on trading in it.

That the plan, but it hasn't actually happened yet. Fortunately the price
of crypto currencies has crashed recently, so there's a lot electricity
being wasted on Ethereum and the other curriences these days.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/06/2022 08:45, Werner P. wrote:

Am 28.06.22 um 00:16 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

Yeah, for all my concerns about the oncoming climate change
catastrophe* I have to say I'm not helping with my gaming setup. I
mean, just the four monitors consume way too much power... and then
they - combined with the CPU and GPU-  generate so much heat I gotta
whisk it all away with air conditioning. And that's just the/one/
computer.

Well i have gone away from that road a long time ago. But here in Europe where I live energy is generally more expensive. The steam deck in this regard really is heavens sent, the 10-15 Watt it consumes is neglectable.
I alyways shun to turn on my main pc given the energy consumption
especially in summer. We have a good thermal isolation so turning the pc
on in summer is basically heating the room. Sure you can as you said
"whisk it away" with the AC (a luxury not that common where I live, we
have one because I have been doing home office way before covid) but
that is rather pointless.

Energy prices here in the UK are getting close to painful with the one I
notice most being petrol as you're reminded about it every time you go
to the garage.

As for AC, not much call for it in the UK as it's not often we get
particularly high temperatures. The one time I would like it is when
it's just too hot at night to sleep. The problem with that though. I
find it really hard to get to sleep with that type of noise in the
background.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am 29.06.22 um 18:54 schrieb Ross Ridge:

On the plus side at least Etherium of the bitcoins has switched away from
the GPU and therefore power insensitive mining, not that I was planning
on trading in it.

That the plan, but it hasn't actually happened yet. Fortunately the price
of crypto currencies has crashed recently, so there's a lot electricity
being wasted on Ethereum and the other curriences these days.

That plan has been in existence for years now but if it ever will happen
who knows.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Am 30.06.22 um 12:40 schrieb JAB:

Energy prices here in the UK are getting close to painful with the one I notice most being petrol as you're reminded about it every time you go
to the garage.

As for AC, not much call for it in the UK as it's not often we get particularly high temperatures. The one time I would like it is when
it's just too hot at night to sleep. The problem with that though. I
find it really hard to get to sleep with that type of noise in the background.

Yeah UK is slightly different, temperatures here in Austria have become
warmer and warmer the last decade in summer we have quite a few days now
with 30c and we are hitting slowly the barrier where you can plant
citrus fruits with mild cold tolerance in the wine growing areas like
the Danube valley (where I live). Not too many people have ACs in their
houses atm, but cooling slowly is becoming an issue. Frankly I am glad
my house has ACs, I would not live without it anymore. The energy
consumption of such a splitter system is neglectable compared to other
devices.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)