alt Hacker News> 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 consoooooom and then cry and outrage when they are exploited instead of just walking away and doing something else.
Same with magic the gathering, the game went to shit and so many people got outraged and in a big huff but they still spend thousands on the hobby. I just stopped playing mtg.
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AMD isn't even bad at video games, it's just pytorch that doesn't work so well.
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.
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.
> I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games
My favorite part about being a reformed gaming addict is the fact that my MacBook now covers ~100% of my computer use cases. The desktop is nice for Visual Studio but that's about it.
I'm still running a 5700XT in my desktop. I have absolutely zero desire to upgrade.
I want to love AMD, but they're just... mediocre. Worse for gaming, and much worse for ML. They're better-integrated into Linux, but given that the entire AI industry runs on:
1. Nvidia cards
2. Hooked up to Linux boxes
It turns out that Nvidia tends to work pretty well on Linux too, despite the binary blob drivers.
Other than gaming and ML, I'm not sure what the value of spending much on a GPU is... AMD is just in a tough spot.
> 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'd really love to try AMD as a daily driver. For me CUDA is the showstopper. There's really nothing comparable in the AMD camp.
> 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.
> 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'm with you - in principle. Capital-G "Gamers" who turned gaming into an identity and see themselves as the real discriminated group have fully earned the ridicule.
But I think where the criticism is valid is how NVIDIA's behavior is part of the wider enshittification trend in tech. Lock-in and overpricing in entertainment software might be annoying but acceptable, but it gets problematic when we have the exact same trends in actually critical tech like phones and cars.
> when they are exploited instead of just walking away and doing something else.
You don’t even have to walk away. You pretty much never need the latest GPUs to have a great gaming experience
I couldn’t be more pleased with my 7900xt 20gb.
Running most inference models (quantized of course) via Vulkan. Playing games using Wine and/or Steam+Proton on Linux.
Sweet spot in price.
If I hadn't bought a 3090 when they were 1k new, I likely would've switched back onto the AMD train by now.
So far there hasn't been enough of a performance increase for me to upgrade either for gaming or ML. Maybe AMDs rumored 9090 will be enough to get me to open my wallet.
> I have also realized that there is a lot out there in the world besides video games
...and even if you're all in on video games, there's a massive amount of really brilliant indie games on Steam that run just fine on a 1070 or 2070 (I still have my 2070 and haven't found a compelling reason to upgrade yet).
And even if you ignore AMD, most PCs being sold are cheap computers using whatever integrated hardware Intel is selling for graphics.
Couldn't agree more
I just learned MTG this year because my 11 year old son got into it. I like it. How did it “go to shit”?
Also playing PC video games doesn't even require a Nvidia GPU. It does sorta require Windows. I don't want to use that, so guess I lost the ability to waste tons of time playing boring games, oh no.
> 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.