Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia won, we all lost

blog.sebin-nyshkim.net

291–300 of 599 posts

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#291
With the rise of LLM training, Nvidia’s main revenue stream switched to datacenter gpus (>10x gaming revenue). I wonder whether this have affected the quality of these consumer cards, including both their design and product processes:

https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/nvda/metrics/revenue-by-seg...

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of the 11 games I've bought through Steam this year, I've had to refund one (1) because it wouldn't run under Proton, two (2) had minor graphical glitches that didn't meaningfully affect my enjoyment of them, and two (2) had native Linux builds. Proton has gotten good enough that I've switched from spending time researching if I can play a game to just assuming that I can. Presumably ymmv depending on your taste…

It depends on the games you play and what you are doing. It is a mixed bag IME. If you are installing a game that is several years old it will work wonderfully. Most guides assume you have Arch Linux or are using one of the "gaming" distros like Bazzite. I use Debian (I am running Testing/Trixie RC on my main PC). I play a lot of HellDivers 2. Despite what a lot of Linux YouTubers say. It doesn't work very well on Li…

Fedora 42, Helldivers 2

Make sure to change your Steam launch options to:

PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=84 gamemoderun %command%

This will use gamemode to run it, give it priority, put the system in performance power mode, and will fix any pulse audio static you may be having. You can do this for any game you launch with steam, any shortcut, etc.

It's missing probably 15fps on this card between windows and Linux, and since it's above 100fps I really don't even notice.

It does seem to run a bit better under gnome with Variable Refresh Rate than KDE.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalping and MSRP-baiting have been around for far too many years for nVidia to claim innocence. The death of EVGA's GPU line also revealed that nVidia holds most of the cards in the relationship with its "partners". Sure, Micro Center and Amazon can only do so much, and nVidia isn't a retailer, but they know what's going on and their behavior shows that they actually like this situation.

Yeah wait, what happened with EVGA? (guess I can search it up, of course) I was browsing gaming PC hardware recently and noticed none of the GPUs were from EVGA .. I used to buy their cards because they had such a good warranty policy (in my experience)... :\

EVGA was angry because nVidia wouldn't pay them for attempts at scalping which failed.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#294

> With over 90% of the PC market running on NVIDIA tech, they’re the clear winner of the GPU race. The losers are every single one of us. I have been rocking AMD GPU ever since the drivers were upstreamed into the linux kernel. No regrets. I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games, and getting all in a huff about it isn’t worth my time or energy. But consumer gotta consoooooo…

> I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games, and getting all in a huff about it isn’t worth my time or energy. I think more and more people will realize games are a waste of time for them and go on to find other hobbies. As a game developer, it kinda worries me. As a gamer, I can't wait for gaming to be a niche thing again, haha.

The games industry is now bigger than the movies industry. I think you're very wrong about this, as games are engaging in a way other consumption based media simply cannot replicate.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#295

> With over 90% of the PC market running on NVIDIA tech, they’re the clear winner of the GPU race. The losers are every single one of us. I have been rocking AMD GPU ever since the drivers were upstreamed into the linux kernel. No regrets. I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games, and getting all in a huff about it isn’t worth my time or energy. But consumer gotta consoooooo…

You are certainly right that this group has little spending self-control. There is no limit just about to how abusive companies like Hasbro, Nvidia and Nintendo can be and still rake in record sales.

They will complain endlessly about the price of a RTX 5090 and still rush out to buy it. I know people that own these high end cards as a flex, but their lives are too busy to actually play games.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#296

> With over 90% of the PC market running on NVIDIA tech, they’re the clear winner of the GPU race. The losers are every single one of us. I have been rocking AMD GPU ever since the drivers were upstreamed into the linux kernel. No regrets. I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games, and getting all in a huff about it isn’t worth my time or energy. But consumer gotta consoooooo…

I am not a gamer and don't why AMD GPUs aren't good enough. It's weird since both Xbox and PlayStation are using AMD GPUs. I guess there games that you can only play on PC with Nvidia graphics. That begs the question why someone create a game and ignore large console market.

> AMD GPUs aren't good enough.

Software. AMD has traditionally been really bad at their drivers. (They also missed the AI train and are trying to catch up).

I use Linux and have learned not to touch AMD GPUs (and to a lesser extent CPUs due to chipset quality/support) a long time ago. Even if they are better now, (I feel) Intel integrated (if no special GPU perf needed) or NVidia are less risky choices.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#297
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a gamer and don't why AMD GPUs aren't good enough. It's weird since both Xbox and PlayStation are using AMD GPUs. I guess there games that you can only play on PC with Nvidia graphics. That begs the question why someone create a game and ignore large console market.

> AMD GPUs aren't good enough. Software. AMD has traditionally been really bad at their drivers. (They also missed the AI train and are trying to catch up). I use Linux and have learned not to touch AMD GPUs (and to a lesser extent CPUs due to chipset quality/support) a long time ago. Even if they are better now, (I feel) Intel integrated (if no special GPU perf needed) or NVidia are less risky choices.

> I use Linux and have learned not to touch AMD GPUs (and to a lesser extent CPUs due to chipset quality/support) a long time ago. Even if they are better now, (I feel) Intel integrated (if no special GPU perf needed) or NVidia are less risky choices.

Err, what? While you're right about Intel integrated GPUs being a safe choice, AMD has long since been the GPU of choice for Linux -- it just works. Whereas Nvidia on Linux has been flaky for as long as I can remember.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason you see things like Blizzard killing off Overwatch 1 is because the Lindy effect applies in gaming as well. Some things are so sticky and preferred that you have to commit atrocities to remove them from use. From a supply/demand perspective, if all of your customers are still getting high on the 5 (or 20) year old supply, launching a new title in the same space isn't going to work. There are not an…

I purchased "approximately $0.00" in TF2 loot boxes. How much exactly? Left as an exercise to the reader.

When were microtransactions added to TF2? Probably years after the initial launch, and they worked so well the game became f2p.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scalpers are a retail wide problem. Acting like Nvidia has the insight or ability to prevent them is just silly. Oh trust me, they can combat it. The easiest way, which is what Nintendo often does for the launch of its consoles, is produce an enormous amount of units before launch. The steady supply to retailers, absolutely destroys folks ability to scalp. Yes a few units will be scalped, but most scalpers will be…

Switch 2 inventory was amazing, but how did RX 9070 inventory remotely sufficient? News at the time were all about how limited its availability https://www.tweaktown.com/news/103716/amd-rx-9070-xt-stock-a... Not to mention it's nowhere to be found on Steam Hardware Survey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

The 9070 XT stock situation went about like this; I bought a 5070 Ti instead.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#300
post #3

This article goes much deeper than I expected, and is a nice recap of the last few years of "green" gpu drama. Liars or not, the performance has not been there for me in any of my usecases, from personal to professional. A system from 2017/2018 with an 8700K and an 8GB 2080 performs so closely to the top end, expensive systems today that it makes almost no sense to upgrade at MSRP+markup unless your system is older t…

> A system from 2017/2018 with an 8700K and an 8GB 2080 performs so closely to the top end, expensive systems today

This is in no way true and is quite an absurd claim. Unless you meant for some specific isolated purposed restricted purely to yourself and your performance needs.

> there are very few use cases I can think of needing more than a 30 series card right now.

How about I like high refresh and high resolutions? I'll throw in VR to boot. Which are my real use cases. I use a high refresh 4K display and VR, both have benefited hugely from my 2080Ti > 4090 Shift.

Post reply on HN