Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia won, we all lost

blog.sebin-nyshkim.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 599 posts

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#541

Post by sidewndr46 »

bob1029 wrote: post #450
sidewndr46 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a business perspective, launching a game like Starcraft 2 at any time is a business catastrophe. There are obscure microtransactions in other Blizzard titles that have generated more revenue than Starcraft 2.

If SC2 was such a failure at any time, why bother with 3 expansions? I think the biggest factors involve willingness to operate with substantially smaller margins and org charts. It genuinely seemed like "Is this fun?" was actually a bigger priority than profit prior to the Activision merger.

Activision Blizzard was not a well run company. After running the company into the ground Kotick sold it off to Microsoft.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#542

Post by robbies »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #65

Oh man, you haven't gotten into their AI benchmark bullshittery. There's factors of 4x on their numbers that are basically invented whole cloth by switching units.

They “learned” this trick from their consumer days. Devs always had to reverse-engineer the hypothetical scaling from their fantasy numbers

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#543

Post by a2tech »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #294
stodor89 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What’s the gaming industry look like when you remove mobile gaming from the equation?

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#544

Post by kldg »

the big reason I upgrade GPUs these days is for more VRAM for LLMs and diffusion models. I don't care (or need to care, really) as much about gaming -- along with great Proton support, running things from a midrange Linux-based gaming PC I have shoved in my home server rack works great via Steam's Remote Play (NoMachine also pretty good), but I play strategy/spreadsheet games, not twitchy FPS games.

my most recent upgrade was for a 4090, but that gives me only 24GB VRAM, and it's too expensive to justify buying two of them. I also have an antique kepler datacenter GPU, but Nvidia cut driver support a long while ago, making software quite a pain to get sorted. there's a nonzero chance I will wind up importing a Moore Threads GPU for next purchase; Nvidia's just way too expensive, and I don't need blazing fast speeds given most of my workloads run well inside the time I'm sleeping, but I can't be running at the speed of CPU; I need everything to fit into VRAM. I'd alternately be stoked for Intel to cater to me. $1500, 48GB+ VRAM, good pytorch support; make it happen, somebody.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#545

Post by surgical_fire »

kassner wrote: post #519
surgical_fire wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games My main hobby is videogames, but since I can consistently play most games on Linux (that has good AMD support), it doesn't really matter.

Steam+Proton has been so incredibly good in the last year that I’m yet to install Windows on my gaming PC. I really do recommend anyone to try out that option first.

Also, I've been using Lutris to install things from GoG or even standalone games. Pretty straight forward to manage what proton version to use for each there.

After 3 years, I haven't missed Windows a single day.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#546

Post by Mars008 »

jabwd wrote: post #508
Mars008 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still have 2080 RTX on primary desktop, it's more than enough for GUI. Just got PRO 6000 96GB for models tuning/training/etc. The cheapest 'good enough' for my needs option.

Is this like a computational + memory need? Otherwise one would think something like the framework desktop or a mac mini would be a better choice right?

I need both compute and memory. Video/image processing models take a lot in training. And the bigger the better at these sizes. So it will run trainings for weeks nonstop.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#547

Post by leakycap »

theshackleford wrote: post #457
Der_Einzige wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this exact CPU sans a 3090 (I started with 2080 but upgraded due to local AI needs). 8700k is perfectly fine for todays workloads. CPUs have stagnated and also the amount of RAM in systems has too (Apple still macbook air defaults of 8 GB in 2025??????)

It wasn’t “workloads” being talked about, it was gaming performance, the one area in which there is an absolutely huge difference mainly on the GPU side. We are taking a difference of close too if not 100%. And despite CPUs stagnating it’s absolutely still possible to be held back on a stronger GPU with an older CPU especially in areas such as 1% lows, stuttering etc.

> This is in no way true and is quite an absurd claim.

You provided no evidence to back up this very strong statement; should we just take your word for it?

> especially in areas such as 1% lows, stuttering etc.

Oh, if you're willing to spend $1k to improve your 1% lows, I guess your argument makes sense.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#548

Post by latentcall »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #446
artursapek wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just learned MTG this year because my 11 year old son got into it. I like it. How did it “go to shit”?

Don’t let my opinion affect you, MTG is still a fun game and you should do that if you find it enjoyable — especially if your son likes it. But here is why I had a falling out: 1. The number of sets per year increased too much, there are too many cards being printed to keep up 2. Cards from new sets are pushed to be very strong (FIRE design) which means that the new cards are frequently the best cards. Combine this w…

Can’t you just print cards on a laser printer and use those

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#549

Post by dwattttt »

dboreham wrote: post #108
dwattttt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, yes, "control system" is somewhat niche jargon. "Balance system" is probably more appropriate.

Well "control system" is a proper term understood by anyone with a decent STEM education since 150 years ago.

To be fair, lots of fields have a notion of a "control" system. Control Theory doesn't have a monopoly on the term, for all that the field revolves around 'control systems'.

Re: Nvidia won, we all lost

#550

Post by hot_gril »

dgellow wrote: post #370
kevincox wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that these companies aren't charging "fair" prices (whatever that means) but for many hardcore gamers their spending per hour is tiny compared to other forms of entertainment. They may buyba $100 game and play to for over 100 hours. Maybe add another $1/hour for the console. Compared to someone who frequents the cinema goes to the pub or does many other common hobbies and it can be hard to say that gam…

Off-topic: micro transactions are just digital transactions. There is nothing micro about them. I really wish that term would just die

Probably called that because it's smaller than the transaction of buying the game
Post reply on HN