The post-GeForce era: What if Nvidia abandons PC gaming?

Posted by taubek 14 hours ago

Comments

Comment by sombragris 9 hours ago

I doubt that this would ever happen. But...

If it does, I think it would be a good thing.

The reason is that it would finally motivate game developers to be more realistic in their minimum hardware requirements, enabling games to be playable on onboard GPUs.

Right now, most recent games (for example, many games built on Unreal Engine 5) are unplayable on onboard GPUs. Game and engine devs simply don't bother anymore to optimize for the low end and thus they end up gatekeeping games and excluding millions of devices because for recent games, a discrete GPU is required even for the lowest settings.

Comment by Bridged7756 8 hours ago

True. Optimization is completely dead. Long gone are the days of a game being amazing because the devs managed to pull crazy graphics for the current hardware.

Nowadays a game is only poorly optimized if it's literally unplayable or laggy, and you're forced to constantly upgrade your hardware with no discernible performance gain otherwise.

Comment by batiudrami 1 hour ago

Crazy take, in the late 90s/early 00s your GPU could be obsolete 9 months after buying. The “optimisation” you talk about was the CPU in the ps4 generation was so weak and tech was moving so fast that any pc bought in 2015 onwards would easily brute force overpower anything that had been built for that generation.

Comment by archagon 6 hours ago

I feel like Steam Deck support is making developers optimize again.

Comment by fxtentacle 10 hours ago

I don’t think they can.

NVIDIA, like everyone else on a bleeding edge node, has hardware defects. The chance goes up massively with large chips like modern GPUs. So you try to produce B200 cores but some compute units are faulty. You fuse them off and now the chip is a GP102 gaming GPU.

The gaming market allows NVIDIA to still sell partially defective chips. There’s no reason to stop doing that. It would only reduce revenue without reducing costs.

Comment by cwzwarich 8 hours ago

Nvidia doesn't share dies between their high-end datacenter products like B200 and consumer products. The high-end consumer dies have many more SMs than a corresponding datacenter die. Each has functionality that the other does not within an SM/TPC, nevermind the very different fabric and memory subsystem (with much higher bandwidth/SM on the datacenter parts). They run at very different clock frequencies. It just wouldn't make sense to share the dies under these constraints, especially when GPUs already present a fairly obvious yield recovery strategy.

Comment by jsheard 8 hours ago

You can't turn a GB200 into a GB202 (which I assume is what you meant since GP102 is from 2016), they are completely different designs. That kind of salvage happens between variants of the same design, for example the RTX Pro 6000 and RTX 5090 both use GB202 in different configurations, and chips which don't make the cut for the former get used for the latter.

Comment by jaapz 12 hours ago

AMD will be very happy when they do. They are already making great cards, currently running an RX7800XT (or something like that), and it's amazing. Linux support is great too

Comment by acheron 8 hours ago

I got an.. AMD (even today I still almost say “ATI” every time) RX6600 XT I think, a couple years ago? It’s been great. I switched over to Linux back in the spring and yes the compatibility has been fine and caused no issues. Still amazed I can run “AAA” games, published by Microsoft even, under Linux.

Comment by snvzz 11 hours ago

RX 7900gre, can confirm as much.

Comment by pjmlp 13 hours ago

It means people get to enjoy more indie games with good designs, instead of having FOMO for cool graphics without substance.

Comment by newsclues 13 hours ago

It means lots of people will give up the hobby.

Let's be real, the twitch FPS CoD players aren't going to give that up and play a boring life simulator.

This has the potential to harm a lot of businesses from hardware to software companies, and change the lives of millions of people.

Comment by baobun 13 hours ago

PC gaming will be fine even without 8K 120fps raytracing. It will be fine even if limited to iGPUs. Maybe even better off if it means new titles are actually playable on an average new miniPC. More realistically I guess we get an AMD/Intel duopoly looking quite similar instead.

It will probably be a bigger blow to people who want to run LLMs at home.

Comment by jonway 13 hours ago

That doesn't sem very plausible, how many people are driven away from CounterStrike or like League of Legends because the graphics weren't as good as Cyberpunk or whatever?

Theres a LOT of games that compete with AAA-massive-budget games on aggregate like Dwarf Fortress, CS, League, Fortnite, people are still playing arma 2, dayz, rust, etc Rainbow Six: Siege still has adherents and even cash-payout tournaments. EvE: Online, Ultima Online, Runescape, still goin'

These games have like no advertising and are still moneymakers. Eve and UO are like 20 and 30 years old. Heck, Classic WoW!

Comment by deaux 8 hours ago

I wonder if all the games you named combined surpass what Mihoyo makes off the likes of Genshin Impact.

Comment by ikamm 9 hours ago

Most CoD players are on console or mobile, not PC

Comment by hyghjiyhu 10 hours ago

Cod devs aren't stupid. They will design a game for the hardware their target market can get their hands on.

Comment by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 13 hours ago

Huh? No? It means that the overall platform is already at 'good enough' level. There can always be an improvement, but in terms of pure visuals, we are already past at a point, where some studios choose simple representations ( see some 2d platformers ) as a stylistic choice.

It gonna be ok.

Comment by newsclues 12 hours ago

My pc is good enough for now but it’s years old and when it dies, then what? You want me to give up gaming and start hanging out at your local bar?

Comment by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10 hours ago

It is not a question of want. Gaming will exist in some form so I am simply uncertain what you are concerned about.

Can you elaborate a little? What, exactly, is your concern here? That you won't have nvidia as a choice? That AMD will be the only game in town? That gpu market will move from duopoly ( for gaming specifically ) to monopoly? I have little to go on, but I don't really want to put words in your mouth based on minimal post.

Comment by newsclues 8 hours ago

I want a local gaming machine that I control.

Not a locked ecosystem console or a streaming service with lag!

I think if nvidia leaves the market for AI, why wouldn’t AMD and intel, with the memory cartel. So DIY market is gone. That kills lots of companies and creators that rely on the gaming market.

It’s a doom spiral for a lot of the industry. If gaming is just PlayStation and switch and iGPUs there is a lot less innovation in pushing graphics.

It will kill the hobby.

Comment by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 5 hours ago

Interesting. Does nvidia offer control? Last time I checked they arbitrarily updated their drivers to degrade unwelcome use case ( in that case, for crypto ). It sounds to me like the opposite of that.

Separately, do you think they won't try to ingratiate themselves to gamers again once AI market changes?

Do you not think they are part of the cartel anyway ( and the DIY market exists despite that )?

<< So DIY market is gone.

How? One use case is gone. Granted, not a small one and one with an odd type of.. fervor, but relatively small nonetheless. At best, DIY market shifts to local inference machines and whatnot. Unless you specifically refer to gaming market..

<< That kills lots of companies and creators that rely on the gaming market.

Markets change all the time. EA is king of the mountain. EA is filing for bankruptcy. Circle of life.

Edit: ALso, upon some additional consideration and in the spirit of christmas, fuck the streamers ( aka creators ). With very, very limited exceptions, they actively drive what is mostly wrong with gaming these days. Fuck em. And that is before we get to the general retardation they contribute to.

<< It’s a doom spiral for a lot of the industry.

How? For AAA? Good. Fuck em. We have been here before and were all better for it.

<< If gaming is just PlayStation and switch and iGPUs there is a lot less innovation in pushing graphics.

Am I reading it right? AMD and Intel is just for consoles?

<< It will kill the hobby.

It is an assertion without any evidence OR a logical cause and effect.

So far, I am not buying it.

Comment by acheron 8 hours ago

Why would nvidia not making gaming cards make you “give up gaming”?

Comment by pjmlp 12 hours ago

Let's be real, CoD only appeals to a small community in the whole planet.

Comment by newsclues 12 hours ago

Millions of people.

Comment by ThrowawayR2 7 hours ago

CoD has less players than Team Fortress 2 currently, according to Valve's charts: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed . And TF2 has ancient graphics.

Comment by pjmlp 10 hours ago

There are many more millions of gamers that don't even care CoD exists, it fits a small percentage on the world of gaming.

Comment by amanaplanacanal 11 hours ago

But if it didn't exist, those people would likely be playing something else.

Comment by newsclues 11 hours ago

If no pc hardware exists eventually there will be no games to play. Then you will have a bunch of angry gamers at the park pissing everyone off.

If my hobby is ruined and I can’t have fun, I’m going to be an asshole and make everyone else unhappy.

Comment by lolc 10 hours ago

Ahaha are you trolling for entitled gamers? Yeah wouldn't want the real world having to face those. No worries: as long as there are people willing to drop money into expensive gear, somebody will sell it.

Comment by coldtea 12 hours ago

>It means lots of people will give up the hobby.

Oh, we can only hope!

>This has the potential to harm a lot of businesses from hardware to software companies, and change the lives of millions of people.

Including millions of gamers, but for the better.

Comment by newsclues 12 hours ago

You hate gamers? Why?

Why can’t you let people enjoy their hobby?

Comment by coldtea 8 hours ago

For the same reason I don't like alcoholism or meth use or gambling or porn addiction, even when the person "enjoys them".

Comment by tavavex 7 hours ago

That's one hell of a long shot. Are your views applicable to the rest of the entertainment industry? There's plenty of people wasting away in front on Netflix, after all. Or why just entertainment, any "useless" hobbies that are repeatedly done for fun but have no real productive output. Is any comparable "pleasurable" activity that also hooks a minority of people in an unhealthy way bad, or just gaming?

But what's most insane is trying to draw any parallels between gaming and these other things - something that was literally engineered to ruin human lives, biologically (hard drugs) or psychologically (gambling). The harm and evil caused by these two industries is incomprehensible (especially the legal parts of them, like alcohol and casino gambling/sports betting/online gambling), and trying to fit gaming in among them both downplays the amount of suffering inflicted by gambling and hard drugs, as well as villainizes normal people - like the hundreds of millions of people who play games in a sane, non-problematic way or indie game devs who make games because they want to express themselves artistically.

Anyways, I gotta log off HN for a while. I can feel my gaming withdrawal kicking in. I've bankrupted myself four times by only spending my money on gaming, and I've been in and out of rehab centres and ERs as I've been slowly destroying my body with gaming in a spiral of deadly addiction. I think I'll have to panhandle and threaten strangers on the street to buy some Steam cards.

Comment by 0dayz 14 hours ago

It remains to be seen to be fair.

But if this does happen it will be in my opinion the start of a slow death of the democratization of tech.

At best it means we're going to be relegated to last tech if even that, as this isn't a case of SAS vs s-ata or u.2 vs m.2, but the very raw tech (chips).

Comment by butterknife 13 hours ago

Is it better to go short on them or buy AMD?

Comment by snvzz 11 hours ago

If NVIDIA exits the market, there is still AMD, Intel and PowerVR (Imagination Technologies is back at making discrete PC GPUs, although currently only in China).

Comment by ErroneousBosh 10 hours ago

Unfortunately none of those are any use for video work.

Comment by shmeeed 4 hours ago

Is that due to some kind of issue with the architecture, or just a matter of software support?

In the latter case, I'd expect patches for AMD or Intel to become a priority pretty quickly. After all, they need their products to run on systems that customers can buy.

Comment by ErroneousBosh 1 hour ago

Well, they don't support CUDA and I don't see CUDA coming to AMD any time soon.

Intel is just plain not capable of it because it's not really a GPU, more a framebuffer with a clever blitter.

Comment by Wowfunhappy 14 hours ago

I'm also curious what this could mean for Nintendo.

Comment by xattt 13 hours ago

NVIDIA would still have service contract obligations to fulfil, and would provide support for its existing products for a period of time.

Don’t worry about Nintendo. Their pockets are deep and they are creative enough to pivot. They would retool their stack to support another ARM chip, or another arch entirely.

Comment by nicolaslem 12 hours ago

What goes into a Nintendo console is not prime silicon. When it's time to design the next console, I am sure Nvidia will still be more than happy to give them a design that they have laying around somewhere in a drawer if it means they ship 100M units.

Comment by eucryphia 14 hours ago

More children born?

Comment by grim_io 10 hours ago

Shrug and buy the next best thing?

Comment by coldtea 12 hours ago

Nothing of value would be lost if all the PC gaming went away. It would be a huge improvement in life skills and mental health and even dating prospects for millions.

Comment by ulrashida 10 hours ago

I was tempted to respond with an offhand comment about the size of the industry or similar, but what axe do you have to grind about PC gaming? You'd prefer folks go to the far more injurious mobile gaming space?

Comment by coldtea 8 hours ago

>You'd prefer folks go to the far more injurious mobile gaming space?

No, I prefer them touching grass and talking to some people, or getting a less addictive and time-wasting hobby.

Comment by ulrashida 8 hours ago

That's a worthwhile view, but unlikely to occur. You may as well wish away casinos and alcohol while you're at it.

Comment by shmeeed 6 hours ago

Luckily, what's valuable and what's not is not on you to judge.