The problem with new generation cards and their reliance on software features to be able to perform.

[Vanythe]

Inflation has gone through the roof, new mid-range cards are sold for high end, sometimes even enthusiast level prices whilst being weaker than the previous generation. Most modern games use FP16 so I'll use that as a general performance measurement, along with memory.


RTX 2060 Super - 14.4 TFLOPS FP16, 448 GB/s memory bandwidth, 256-bit bus.
RTX 3060 8GB - 12.8 TFLOPS FP16, 240 GB/s memory bandwidth, 128-bit bus.
RTX 4060 8GB - 15.1 TFLOPS FP16. 272 GB/s memory bandwidth, 128-bit bus.


All of these cards use GDDR6. Two of them have their bus cut in half. This will be a problem in the future because these new cards cannot push things fast enough.

Still, maybe that doesn't matter, the future of gaming is with AI-assisted whatever and ray tracing so that's where cores and stuff plays an important role. Let's see:


RTX 2060 Super - Tensor Cores: 272, RayTracing Cores: 34
RTX 3060 8GB - Tensor Cores: 112, RayTracing Cores: 28
RTX 4060 8GB - Tensor Cores: 96, RayTracing Cores: 24


How do you sell a new product thats worse in almost every way than the one you made two generations ago? Software "Features" of course!

Both the 30 and 40 series cards have insane gains with DLSS/FSR options in modern AAA games so that means they are better!! End of story!

Or hmm, where have I seen this before, gpus that have their own proprietary software feature / api and rely on developers to use it in order for their product to appear superior/good to the customer?

3DFX and their GLide API - revolutionary at first, ended up obsolete a few years later because, lo and behold, the future of gaming was not 640x480 at 16-bit colors. Still, at the time they were the "best" gaming choice... if you never thought about future releases. 3DFX went bankrupt and was bought by nvidia in 2000.

S3 and their MeTal API - Same as above, but with even less support. It looked great in Unreal Tournament, the textures were so sharp and detailed... After that nobody cared. Odd? Not really, it's just that other tech which worked on everything has replaced it. S3 went bankrupt around 2011.

Matrox and their EBM tech... yeah that didn't save the abysmally performing card, even though the tech demos would make you believe it was the *future*. Matrox no longer produces their own cards, rather rebrands existing low-end AMD chips as their own and provide custom (but very high quality) drivers for those cards.


My point is, something better than both DLSS/FSR can come in a day, or two, or a week, a month, and these cards simply don't have the "oomph" for any future tech that relies on raw performance.

[emoticorpse]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Vanythe:

It's not even that, I mean look at Crysis from 2007. Do games *really* need to look better than that? Many of them don't come close even today, but require 10 times the computer specs to achieve 1/3 of what that game did. Insane really.

Couldn't you just run games at 1080p/720p low/medium settings or something and get the performance back?

[Vanythe]

Opprinnelig skrevet av emoticorpse:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Vanythe:

It's not even that, I mean look at Crysis from 2007. Do games *really* need to look better than that? Many of them don't come close even today, but require 10 times the computer specs to achieve 1/3 of what that game did. Insane really.

Couldn't you just run games at 1080p/720p low/medium settings or something and get the performance back?

Completely missing the point.

[Pocahawtness]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Vanythe:

Inflation has gone through the roof, new mid-range cards are sold for high end, sometimes even enthusiast level prices whilst being weaker than the previous generation. Most modern games use FP16 so I'll use that as a general performance measurement, along with memory.


RTX 2060 Super - 14.4 TFLOPS FP16, 448 GB/s memory bandwidth, 256-bit bus.
RTX 3060 8GB - 12.8 TFLOPS FP16, 240 GB/s memory bandwidth, 128-bit bus.
RTX 4060 8GB - 15.1 TFLOPS FP16. 272 GB/s memory bandwidth, 128-bit bus.


All of these cards use GDDR6. Two of them have their bus cut in half. This will be a problem in the future because these new cards cannot push things fast enough.

Still, maybe that doesn't matter, the future of gaming is with AI-assisted whatever and ray tracing so that's where cores and stuff plays an important role. Let's see:


RTX 2060 Super - Tensor Cores: 272, RayTracing Cores: 34
RTX 3060 8GB - Tensor Cores: 112, RayTracing Cores: 28
RTX 4060 8GB - Tensor Cores: 96, RayTracing Cores: 24


How do you sell a new product thats worse in almost every way than the one you made two generations ago? Software "Features" of course!

Both the 30 and 40 series cards have insane gains with DLSS/FSR options in modern AAA games so that means they are better!! End of story!

Or hmm, where have I seen this before, gpus that have their own proprietary software feature / api and rely on developers to use it in order for their product to appear superior/good to the customer?

3DFX and their GLide API - revolutionary at first, ended up obsolete a few years later because, lo and behold, the future of gaming was not 640x480 at 16-bit colors. Still, at the time they were the "best" gaming choice... if you never thought about future releases. 3DFX went bankrupt and was bought by nvidia in 2000.

S3 and their MeTal API - Same as above, but with even less support. It looked great in Unreal Tournament, the textures were so sharp and detailed... After that nobody cared. Odd? Not really, it's just that other tech which worked on everything has replaced it. S3 went bankrupt around 2011.

Matrox and their EBM tech... yeah that didn't save the abysmally performing card, even though the tech demos would make you believe it was the *future*. Matrox no longer produces their own cards, rather rebrands existing low-end AMD chips as their own and provide custom (but very high quality) drivers for those cards.


My point is, something better than both DLSS/FSR can come in a day, or two, or a week, a month, and these cards simply don't have the "oomph" for any future tech that relies on raw performance.

I believe this is the future.

We are getting to a point were commercial PC GPU's can't really be improved upon. This means more and more they will be trying to sell us software.

I very much suspect that DLSS3 is the first step in to this. NVIDIA cleverly tied in software enhancements to new hardware, so you have to buy the hardware to get the software.

We will no doubt see a lot more of that sort of thing.

I also think that NVIDIA have effectively abandoned the upgrade market, probably for the same reason (the hardware is approaching a limit). They are more interested now in new PC sales so will just increase prices to account for the fact that they believe the upgrade market will die because of a lack of hardware progress.

Who knows?

[Slav Mcgopnik]

I’m kinda hoping the intel battle mage makes a big enough splash to scare AMD out of mediocrity and NVidia out of stagnation and price gouging.

I don’t buy for a second that “consumer GPUs have hit a wall”, people said the same thing about CPUs until the Ryzens started giving the same performance as their intel counterparts for lower prices, then all of a sudden Intel was putting out CPUs that were massive upgrades at fairer prices.

No, the main issue in the GPU space is that there’s no real competition, NVidia gets to rest on its laurels even after major screw ups because AMD seems unable to even put its pants on in the morning without making a mistake, and even itself is engaging in up-labeling and overpricing GPUs. intel breaking into the enthusiast tier successfully with fair prices would probably stir NVidia and AMD from their slumbers and refresh and open up the space significantly.

[Aviated Views]

We have reached the maximum graphics threshold; we need to prioritize power consumption. The problem with gaming right now is a lack of software innovation and developers who are not willing to put in the effort for optimization.

[󠀡󠀡]

great thread

[Vanythe]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Aviated Views:

We have reached the maximum graphics threshold; we need to prioritize power consumption. The problem with gaming right now is a lack of software innovation and developers who are not willing to put in the effort for optimization.

That too, also the industry's dead-set reliance on using polygons rather than quads and voxels for the models... oh well, maybe DLSS 87 or FSR 991 will make the games finally run and look good, at 60 fps with minor drops.

[Aviated Views]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Vanythe:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Aviated Views:

We have reached the maximum graphics threshold; we need to prioritize power consumption. The problem with gaming right now is a lack of software innovation and developers who are not willing to put in the effort for optimization.

That too, also the industry's dead-set reliance on using polygons rather than quads and voxels for the models... oh well, maybe DLSS 87 or FSR 991 will make the games finally run and look good, at 60 fps with minor drops.

"Mesh shaders" and "task shaders" are ready to use. However, it's surprising that developers haven't fully embraced them yet.

[Skkooomer Lord]

IDK, I just press play, turn settings to max, enable a frame cap if I need once and play on my 7900 XT.
RT / FG and upscaling don't exist in my world.