Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Intel ARC Challenge is Happening!”.
Why don’t we get into our next topic here Luke and I have officially officially started the 30-day Dental Arc challenge. That’S right! It’S happening started late last night I currently have two power supplies under my desk [ Laughter ]. You know what’s the funny thing five years ago, that wouldn’t have even been a problem but Luke and I both ran into physical installation issues with our cards, because I couldn’t find the modular cable bags for my power supplies for the two machines that I moved to Intel Arc and uh the a750 and a770 both use an eight and six pin power, adapter and both of us in all the rigs we upgraded were using dual 8 Pin and not six plus two like dual eight pin connectors and I was not going to go Out and get a Dremel and freaking cut off two pins for a temporary ass GPU install that was not going to happen so um. Thankfully, I actually always carry an ATX D pinning tool with me. It is literally always in my backpack, so I was like. I have the solution the time my emergency Tech drawer had a dual Molex to six pin pcie adapter, so I D pinned that took the sacrificial connector deep, pinned my power supply, put all the pins in and I’m ready to go.
I just got the extra two. Just hanging out in their eight pin for when I put it back together and hopefully don’t destroy it and then Luke. I strongly centered the Dremel option.
I very strongly considered it. I was literally staring at my cable and being like. I could do this. This would be fine um, but then I was like nah cause.
It’S gon na permanently scar it. I don’t have the other cables for this um, so yeah. I went down to the garage found this like ancient, but awesome power, supply and Tech. Signature yeah definitely stolen from work, oh yeah, like 100. Actually, though, a long time ago, it’s probably one of my, like oldest stolen from work things that I have um. It dusted it off because that was actually a problem uh, because it’s been sitting in a garage for many years uh, but yeah jumpered, the 24 pin put it in the four put in the five um and now I I have to turn my computer on. Like a plane, because I have to turn the power supply on for the graphics card, it’s going and then I have to turn the computer on. So I have like a starter motor and and then I actually turn the computer on which I find genuinely entertaining.
So I think I’m just going to leave it this way for, like the whole month. Oh no you’re, gon na kick it you’re gon na. Kick it at some point, I’m hundred percent. I have it so the the 24 pin with the bridging connector yeah, it’s just resting in the arc box right now um, but I’m gon na like tape it in there um and then like manage the power supply back there.
But I think I’m actually gon na leave it because at some point, when we did the last upgrade to the system, the extra cables went missing at in some part of that process. Right. If I don’t have a six pin for it, I could go find it’s just a c sonic power yeah I could find yeah they’d. Send you one buy one sure yeah uh do.
I need them to send me a single cable, so I can run it for like by the time it gets here like two weeks, like I don’t know – probably not um so yeah as long as I can make it manageable. So my girlfriend won’t kill me um I’ll, probably just just leave it as this shoot. A picture of that oh it’ll, be in the video you’ll, see oh it’ll, be in the video there’s gon na be a lot of stuff in the video. I am not gon na lie, it was one disappointment after another.
For me, like I I will accept. I will accept my portion of the blame here. Okay, oh man, I should have had my modular cables all right yeah. I should have those installation problems are honestly not on our yeah.
Those are that is entirely on us. Those are not on Intel. I should have checked the product page to see if they made any mention of VR. Before I put one in my VR gaming PC, they don’t rough yeah.
Those of you who watched the WAN show where we came up with the idea of the Intel Arc challenge. We’Ll remember that I got called out okay during the Linux challenge. I only switched my daily driver gaming PC over to Linux. I left the VR Gaming rig that I have in my living room on Windows, because VR on Linux is pretty much not a thing, and I use my VR rig for exercise like I’ll. I play Beat saber for cardio and don’t laugh, it is good, it’s actually really good exercise, and so this time around I got specifically called out by many members of our community and I think Luke as well for doing that last time and they basically said look, It’S not the arc challenge unless you go Arc all the way, so the the living room PC and your gaming rig. They have to be Arc, and I go sure so. After fighting with bios updates, getting resizable bar enabled switching my boot partition from MBR to GPT. So that I could UEFI Boot and finally, finally, loading up steamvr.
Well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say I sent a little DM over to one of my contacts at Intel and I went if you guys want part two of this video to include, but hey, don’t worry they fixed it. You got 30 days to fix it. That’S a spooky message. I got ta reach out from someone on that team being like.
Is there anything else? Did you really, I’m not gon na say who um they’re they’re a good person, though um, but yeah yeah, it’s uh. So I I think I actually might have a solution for your VR thing really yeah, so because the problem with the Linux challenge was that you sort of in a way use your VR rig as a way to you know not engage with the Linux system. Pretty much at all until the last week uh, I just didn’t, feel like gaming.
It was such a chore. Oh except it was playing beatsaber yeah because, like yeah just grab and go how about sure we don’t, I don’t think completely cut it. So cutting you off of VR for the month is honestly part of the arc challenge, but okay thanks, but it seems a little unreasonable, so I think not being able to do it for like a week or two. So you can feel the pain a little bit because that’s part of it: okay, sense, okay, but then, after that, I think you should be able to switch back. But the amount of time that you spend playing VR has to be mirrored with playing games on your Arc system.
Okay, you know what you spend an hour playing Beat saber. You have to spend an hour on your arches. No I’m going full in I’m going full in.
I want Intel to fix Arc, so that’s it. I will not use VR during this 30 days unless Intel fixes it. It’S just man, I’m I’m frustrated, um, yeah and then Lou, okay, so right as a follow-up Luke, and I both did our installs yesterday and the stream. I think the stream archive is actually, if it’s not up on float plane, then we’ll we’ll get that fixed, we’ll we’ll get it published on float, plane, uh, but Luke, and I actually streamed for about an hour and a half trying to play games and we played. I think five or six games and we had not gon na lie. We had some challenges with all of them day. One did not go well, and I don’t know how hopeful I am for how much it’s going to improve over the next 30 days.
You guys are going to want to watch the videos, though, because it’s there’s a lot more detail, I’m actually pretty hopeful. I think it’s going to improve I’m saying that seriously, there’s only one direction, it can go Luke. That’S part of the reason why I know I know, but but no because a lot of what we were doing had to do with streaming right, we were trying to do remote play together. Uh we were trying to you were trying to stream off of the card. Yes, but like when I was playing I’m working on a review of the Logitech gcloud, so uh video encoding is actually as important as gaming performance.
For me, right now, yep yep, uh, so in in coding, was a problem. There’S a big problem: consistent big problem um but like when I was streaming off of my CPU and we were playing Halo. It was fine um when, when you were not encoding, yeah Untitled Goose games and we were playing with with your Arc and we were playing remote play. It was fine so for like super Normie level, gaming, no VR, no encoding, etc, etc. I think it’s going to be fine and I think that’s probably going to be a pretty significant amount of the month um. So I think it I think the the hill is up from here um but yeah. It’S an uphill battle. That’S for sure, I’m not sure. If that’s what you meant there, but I like it, .