Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#1

Post by currio » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 4:54 PM UTC

Here on HN its almost taken for granted that Nvidia's dominance in data center segment is because of CUDA framework (and possibly better gpus too).

Why is amd doing so much better, relatively, in gaming segment?

Is it because game development doesn't use CUDA?

Feel free to let me know if my premise itself is wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#2

Post by h2odragon » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

Cheaper cards with more memory that work at least well enough for the games available. Its been easier to get AMD cards for a while now. More options in stock, more consistently; at least to my casual observations.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#3

Post by wmf » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

Games indeed do not use CUDA. I wouldn't say AMD is doing great in gaming GPUs but at least their GPUs work so they're not locked out of the market. AMD tends to give better price/performance.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#4

Post by currio » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #3

Games indeed do not use CUDA. I wouldn't say AMD is doing great in gaming GPUs but at least their GPUs work so they're not locked out of the market. AMD tends to give better price/performance.

I see. What frameworks do game developers use? Are they custom and different for each game?

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#5

Post by cratermoon » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

currio wrote: post #4

wmf wrote: post #3

Games indeed do not use CUDA. I wouldn't say AMD is doing great in gaming GPUs but at least their GPUs work so they're not locked out of the market. AMD tends to give better price/performance.

I see. What frameworks do game developers use? Are they custom and different for each game?

DirectX or Vulkan

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#6

Post by t-3 » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

AMD GPUs are good enough, cheaper, and actually available for purchase. I also appreciate that they have good open source drivers and don't need any fiddling to get working on linux and BSDs.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#7

Post by currio » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

t-3 wrote: post #6

AMD GPUs are good enough, cheaper, and actually available for purchase. I also appreciate that they have good open source drivers and don't need any fiddling to get working on linux and BSDs.

Is this reason specific to game development?

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#8

Post by t-3 » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

currio wrote: post #7

t-3 wrote: post #6

AMD GPUs are good enough, cheaper, and actually available for purchase. I also appreciate that they have good open source drivers and don't need any fiddling to get working on linux and BSDs.

Is this reason specific to game development?

No, just as a consumer, but developers are building products for sale, which means they need to target something near the lowest common denominator, which should lead them to a similar conclusion.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#9

Post by runjake » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

currio wrote: post #7

t-3 wrote: post #6

AMD GPUs are good enough, cheaper, and actually available for purchase. I also appreciate that they have good open source drivers and don't need any fiddling to get working on linux and BSDs.

Is this reason specific to game development?

I wouldn’t say that AMD is “doing better” than Nvidia in the gaming market but as another commenter said, their success is probably mostly due to an excellent price/performance ratio compared to NVidia.

Intel is also somewhat making ground with their Arc GPUs.

The key to doing well in the gaming market are good prices, and good gaming performance with DirectX and Vulkan.

Re: Ask HN: Why are AMD GPUs doing better in gaming segment

#10

Post by mamonster » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

Reason not mentioned in the comments already there: NVIDIA has explicitly stated in the past that a lot of the graphical performance in games is expected to come from DLSS. You may have noticed that the raw power of cards is not going up as much as it used to (especially on the lower end), well NVIDIA is arguing that the performance gains will be made up by DLSS.

When it was initially released it required a lot of interaction between NVIDIA and the developer to fine tune the model to the particular game, and most didn't care enough to do it. Now I think there are some ways for developers to mess around with DLSS on their own but due to the state of modern game development most simply don't care enough about it.

So a supposedly very large advantage of NVIDIA cards simply doesn't exist in most titles as of today(most titles do have the DLSS option in the settings, but in about 80% of the titles the differences are negligible).