AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 Processor to Power SMACH Z Handheld Gaming PC

[Medallish]

I don't see what's particularly bad about it?

The whole "its fake" idea comes from the large pile of evidence that the prototypes where nothing more than the dust under my bed. Can you screenshot that update, as I wasn't able to find it or it was for backers only

Those videos are pretty pathetic IMO but they do provide a detailed case of the whole thing, albeit biased

Here's the link. It's public. and no it wasn't fake, it using clickarm turned out to be false, but the specs, and the intentions of it wasn't.
They haven't aired the dirty laundry, but I think we can see why rhomb.io(the guys who made the prototype and owns clickarm) Isn't part of the team any longer, and why they decided to hire their own engineers instead.

It's pretty much a coincidence but I was a subscriber for SD&R before the Smach Z thing, so I was a little extra disappointed seeing that latest hatchet job of a video.

 

[king of swag187]

Yes, the prototypes they've shown have been fake. Whether or not their newest model is fake is TBD.
Edit: the update is from two years ago and it's stating that's it's running of the Bay Trail APU, not the V1000

 

[StrayKAT]

I don't see what's particularly bad about it?

It's size defeats the purpose of handheld gaming. I just don't understand what niche this supposed to fill. Once you reach a certain threshold (like not even convenient enough to stuff in a big jacket pocket), then you aren't gaining anything. You couldn't stuff a laptop in your pocket either, but you gain 10x the power. This OTOH is both losing power and losing convenience.

 

[Medallish]

It's size defeats the purpose of handheld gaming. I just don't understand what niche this supposed to fill. Once you reach a certain threshold (like not even convenient enough to stuff in a big jacket pocket), then you aren't gaining anything. You couldn't stuff a laptop in your pocket either, but you gain 10x the power. This OTOH is both losing power and losing convenience.

But it's pretty similar to the Switch in size? Regardless, if I paid nearly $1000 for a handheld, be it the GPD Win 2 or Smach Z, the very last place I'd ever put it is in my pocket, that thing is going into a carrying case of some description, padded and protected.

Imo comparing it to a laptop is kind of meh, I mean if you'd rather have a laptop, then you should always buy one, it's bigger, cheaper, and as you say more powerful(although not 10x ) What makes the Smach Z advantagous over a laptop imo is that you can play games on it without hassle, try playing Doom 2016 on a laptop without also having to break out a mouse or controller. This would be a simple matter of pulling it out and start playing.

Yes, the prototypes they've shown have been fake. Whether or not their newest model is fake is TBD.
Edit: the update is from two years ago and it's stating that's it's running of the Bay Trail APU, not the V1000

Uhm, no, they haven't? When you say fake that implies they were trying to mislead, they weren't.
Yes the update tells backers and everyone(remember this was while the campaign was still going) that the Prototype doesn't contain final HW, which at the time wasn't Ryzen, but a Bulldozer based SoC.
So once again, no attempt at misleading anyone, they were straight forward with us from the beginning, at least with the relevant parts, it's hard to know exactly how much they knew about the prototype, I lean towards them not knowing it didn't contain clickarm, because if you're them and you receive a prototype, you don't expect the company making it for you to be lying about what's inside.

 

[king of swag187]

Again, for what is probably the 3rd time in a row, their prototypes where either a LVDS board and screen connected to a laptop, or a tablet board. I don't see the point in showing this again and again, so this is my final comment on this

 

[silentbogo]

First report from TGS:
https://boilingsteam.com/tgs-2018-smach-z-news-and-upcoming-milestones/

And some footage of a dumb box:

BTW, there's another core flaw in this project: they've forgotten about Valve Corp. patent no. US20150105152A1...
That's another lawsuit waiting to go kaboom.

 

[Medallish]

Fake prototypes and fake gameplay footage, maybe? Luring backers to their closed forum in almost every update since last year, in order to guide the attention away from IndieGoGo? Getting their campaign closed on Kickstarter for violating the entry rules? Lying about their "investor"? There's more, but I think we had a similar conversation over the Atari VCS not too long ago. The only difference is that Atari may eventually release something (by that I mean some underpowered and overpriced Bristol Ridge brick that will probably have less than 100 playable titles, including the 2600 classics). Smach team already ran out of money, so there is zero chance they make even a single fully-functional prototype (not the fake one), even less so - make it into mass production.

Fake prototypes

There's only been one arguebly "fake" prototype and that was the very first, although they disclosed the specs of it, it was also claimed it used clickarm by Rhomb.io, Rhomb.io(Who was booted from the project) to this day denies it was a tablet board despite the evidence, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that they were the dishonest ones, not Smach Z who disclosed that it was using an Atom SoC streaming from an AMD dev board.
The demo using a laptop wasn't a prototype, the prototype was the board they also showed people that at that time didn't boot(it boots now).

fake gameplay footage

Not entirely sure what this is referring to, although if I had to guess it's the dev board reporting Vega 11 instead of Vega 8, now you don't have to believe the team, however I don't see why they would lie, they say that the bios provided by AMD limited the APU to V1605B specs, I believe this partly because they showcased it using the Smach Z cooler, and the driver string likely wouldn't report it any different, but also for the simple fact that there'd be no reason to lie here.

Luring backers to their closed forum in almost every update since last year, in order to guide the attention away from IndieGoGo? Getting their campaign closed on Kickstarter for violating the entry rules? Lying about their "investor"?

:| Luring backers to guide attention away from indiegogo? What kind of half-baked conspiracy is this? I helped some of those Indiegogo backers get onto the forum, so not sure who made up this incredibly silly talking point, I mean that is by far the craziest I've heard about this project, and we haven't even gotten to the "fake doctor" nonsense.

Also go check, the initial kickstarter wasn't closed by kickstarter, but by the team themselves when it was clear they wouldn't reach their goal. This is how a suspended campaign looks like on kickstarter.
As for the investor, once again, no lies, this was all detailed in a lengthy post by Daniel Fernandez I posted at our community run subreddit. Although I've heard people refusing to read from anyone with an interest in the project succeeding, as an excuse to ignore what they have to say . Also known as the "finger in your ears screaming la la la" method.

Smach team already ran out of money

So you acknowledge that they at the very least have an investor, but they're also broke?
Btw. They still have ontesting engineers hired, and obviously traveling to Japan isn't free, so I don't really see any proof of this.

We'll just have to wait and see. TGS starts tomorrow.


What he meant, is that AMD made a press-release (a weird one, cause there is no word on either AMD or Smach websites) that they are attending Tokyo Game Show 2018. Supposedly they are showcasing Smach as a part of OpenPC tech.
Not sure if it makes it to the livestream, but some sort of info must pop-up somewhere afterwards.

Smach Z has been an AMD partner for a while now. When Smach Z announced to backers that they were going to update the SoC to a Ryzen based APU, it was before the first Consumer Ryzen APUs were even released, it was AMD that offered them the upgrade.

You are getting confused again. A prototype is an early version of the product which has its core functionality, but may not look the same as the final product.
A dumb/empty shell that looks like a final product is called a mockup. Mockups are not prototypes. A shell with a screen and a MIPI/LVDS driver is also technically a mockup of a console.

Sounds like you're simply trying to make the definition fit so that you can call it a mockup, despite it being a prototype, even if it doesn't have all it's features working yet. It boots, it plays games, it just doesn't run the internal screen yet.

First report from TGS:
https://boilingsteam.com/tgs-2018-smach-z-news-and-upcoming-milestones/

And some footage of a dumb box:

BTW, there's another core flaw in this project: they've forgotten about Valve Corp. patent no. US20150105152A1...
That's another lawsuit waiting to go kaboom.

I've sent an email to the team asking regarding this, however it's my understanding that they have an open dialogue with Valve, so I sincerely doubt they are heading into a legal battle with them.