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Comment by marcosscriven | Hacker News Reader

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marcosscriven

Real shame it’s only 60Hz at 4k. There’s a gap for good 120Hz@4k streaming.

Hoping the next Apple TV will do it.

Edit - updated specs claim it can do this, but it’s limited to HDMI 2.0

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(rewriting this comment because the spec sheet has seemingly been updated)

Looks like it can do 4k 120hz, but since it's limited to HDMI 2.0 it will have to rely on 4:2:0 chroma subsampling to get there. Unfortunately the lack of HDMI 2.1 might be down to politics, the RDNA3 GPU they're using should support it in hardware, but the HDMI Forum has blocked AMD from releasing an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hdmi-forum-to-amd-no...

... but isn't it using a wireless dongle to connect to the headset to the PC so HDMI doesn't get involved?

It seems to me the wireless is pretty important. I have an MQ3 and I have the link cable. For software development I pretty much have to plug the MQ3 into my PC and it is not so bad to wander around the living room looking in a Mars boulder from all sides and such.

For games and apps that involve moving around, particularly things like Beat Saber or Supernatural the standalone headset has a huge advantage of having no cable. If I have a choice between buying a game on Steam or the MQ3 store I'm likely to buy the MQ3 game because of the convenience and freedom of standalone. A really good wireless link changes that.

> but isn't it using a wireless dongle to connect to the headset to the PC so HDMI doesn't get involved?

I'm talking about the Steam Machine here. In theory you could pipe 4k120 to the headset assuming there's enough wireless bandwidth, yeah.

It seems it supports DP 1.4 as well, so perhaps you could get an adapter if your display only supports HDMI 2.1

I'm not sure that would work. From what I can tell, the adapters are basically dumb straight through cables, they aren't converting anything. And it's the actual GPU that's outputting a HDMI signal over the Displayport connector, which the adapter than rewires in to a HDMI shaped connector.

> And it's the actual GPU that's outputting a HDMI signal over the Displayport connector, which the adapter than rewires in to a HDMI shaped connector.

There are two kinds of DP to HDMI adapters. The passive ones are like you said, they need special support on the GPU (these ports are usually labelled as DP++), IIRC they only do some voltage level shifting. The active ones work on any DP port (they don't need AFAIK any special support on the GPU), and they do the full protocol conversion.

Caveat: the good active ones aren’t exactly cheap.

I was able to use this adapter to get my 2070s DisplayPort output to send 4k120hz to my TV, which only has HDMI ports.

Club 3D active adapter: https://www.amazon.com/Club-3D-DisplayPort1-4-Adapter-CAC-10...

It will, I’m doing DP to HDMI 4:4:4 4K@120Hz (and expecting HDR in the near future) from an RX 7900XTX to an LG C3 on Linux.

I’m using the Club3D active adapter, which is the only one I found in reviews to reliably work. And it does, 0 problems whatsoever.

So, in the specs for the mini-pc, it claims the video out can do 4K @ 120Hz (even faster if displayport). I assume the 4K @ 60Hz you saw is from the "4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR" line.

I reckon it can probably stream at 4K@120 if it can game at half that.

Interesting. I also saw HDMI 2.0 - I guess it’s technically possible but with subsampling?

This is not true, from the specs:

HDMI 2.0

Up to 4K @ 120Hz

Supports HDR, FreeSync, and CEC

I have zero doubts the device can do 4k @ 120Hz streaming Hardware wise. In the end it is just a normal Linux desktop.

Considering how much they talk about Foveated rendering, I think it might not be constrained by the traditional limitations of screens - instead of sending a fixed resolution image at whatever frequency, it'll send a tiny but highly detailed image where your eyes are focusing, with the rest being considerably lower resolution.

Or that's what I think I may be completely wrong.

Where are you getting this number? I'm not seeing it on the specs page.

This is for the steam machine, not the headset. Mentioned in the CPU & GPU section.

it's confusing rn because on the steam machine post people are commenting on the frame and vice-versa here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45903404

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